Regulating the Teacher: Educational Policy and Professional Identity in To Vima under the Greek Dictatorship

Abstract

This article examines the public and institutional representation of teachers in To Vima under the Greek military dictatorship, focusing on the relationship between educational policy, institutional regulation, and professional identity. Drawing on qualitative content analysis of selected newspaper material, interpreted alongside the legislative and historical framework of the period, the study explores how teachers were positioned within a highly centralised educational system. Particular attention is paid to professional mobility, criteria of professional suitability, teacher preparation, in-service education, and supervisory structures. Rather than reconstructing teachers’ lived or subjective professional identities, the analysis investigates the institutionally prescribed and publicly represented professional roles made visible through newspaper and legislative evidence. The findings reveal a persistent tension between the pedagogical and social authority attributed to teachers and the bureaucratic and ideological constraints placed upon their professional autonomy. The article argues that authoritarian educational governance operated not only through curricula, legislation, and institutional structures, but also through the regulation of the professional subject responsible for implementing educational policy.