The teaching profession against the background of educationalisation: an exploratory study.

This article focuses on the teaching profession against the background of educa- tionalisation in the Netherlands in the sense that Dutch schools are increasingly regarded as focal points at which to address and solve social issues. Our research project concentrated on the extent to which teachers, being key fi gures in the school organisation, understand their role as one that embraces a social in addition to an educational mission. It explores teachers ’ professional identity and their awareness, task perception and self-ef fi cacy with respect to performing a social mission. The results show that ‘ addressing social issues ’ can be identi- fi ed as a dimension of teachers ’ professional identity. However, teachers report low self-ef fi cacy as regards carrying out social tasks, irrespective of their task perception and awareness. The phenomenon of educationalisation is occurring in other Western European countries and in the US. The results of this exploratory study raise questions about the feasibility of educationalising social problems.