Rethinking teacher professionalism through the capability approach: responding to superdiversity in education

Abstract

Recognition of increasing student diversity highlights the limitations of standards-based models of teacher professionalism. These frameworks often struggle to accommodate complexity, and risk reducing ethical and relational work to technical compliance and measurable outputs, thereby overlooking crucial qualities like care, autonomy, and situated judgement. This paper proposes the capability approach, initially developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum, as a human-centred and justice-sensitive alternative for redefining teacher professionalism in superdiverse contexts. The capability approach shifts the evaluative focus from prescribed standards and outcomes to the real freedoms and opportunities (capabilities) teachers possess to be and do what they value as professionals. We argue for the normative and practical appeal of a capability-oriented model that would involve: (1) identifying valued professional functionings through participatory processes; (2) evaluating teachers’ real capabilities; and (3) understanding the personal, social, and environmental conversion factors affecting whether resources translate into substantive freedoms. This article contributes a conceptual model of capability-oriented teacher professionalism that integrates the capability approach’s normative and evaluative dimensions. The model offers a compelling theoretical shift away from universalising, outcomes-based models by centring teacher agency and reframing capability deprivation not as individual failure but as a result of interacting systemic barriers. Adopting this approach calls for policy and leadership to move away from standardisation towards plural, context-sensitive, and agency-enhancing professional trajectories.