An examination of primary school teachers' views regarding professionalism in teaching profession (Hatay province case)

This study aims at revealing classroom teachers' views regarding their job, professionalism in their job, and their colleagues' professionalism. It also explores classroom teachers' views about the qualities a professional teacher should have, the factors that affect their professionalism and the views regarding their professionalism processes. The present study is a qualitative study. The participants were 17 classroom teachers determined by maximum variation sampling. A face-to-face interview method was conducted using a semi-structured interview form. The findings showed that the participants' definitions of professionalism matched with literature data. While defining professionalism, female teachers used affective concepts whereas male teachers used definitions like following the procedure and professional progress. Whereas most of the teachers regarded their job as a professional job, they regarded their colleagues as half-professionals. Participants reported teacher knowledge, personal and professional characteristics as the qualities a professional teacher should possess. Issues like incentives towards training and seminars, status and career systems were respectively mentioned as factors contributing to professionalism. Job dissatisfaction, laws, dependence on the program and course books were stated as detrimental to professionalism. Most of the teachers stated that professionalism would occur as a result of a process. Mentioning the factors that affect this process, they stated that the trainings they had received were effective, and expressed their opinions regarding experiences, personal effort and the negatives of choice of criteria. The findings were discussed within the literature, and suggesstions were put aside for researchers at the end. Key Words: Professionalism, Teaching Profession, Teacher, Professionalism Process