Identity and Ethics of the Profession in Eight Countries A Comparative Research

Aims of this paper is to present the results of the international research on the professional status of teachers from a comparative point of view. The first Italian workgroup, which met to discuss this subject in the summer of 2001, was progressively joined by groups of scholars from other countries, who were interested in giving a sense to teachers and value to their profession. The year 2004 saw the publication of data from the Italian and United States sides and, in 2005, the results from Poland were made known. Thoughts from Belgium, Cyprus and Libya were added in 2006 and joined by those of Slovakia and Turkey in 2007. The participants in the research provided for the translation of the questionnaire into their national languages, starting from the original English draft, prepared in the United States. The data collected is more indicative, than statistically representative and able to be generalised, of what was felt by the teachers in contexts within which an identity of professional belonging was detected. We understand that the teacher is such within any context and that the phenomenal differentiations that characterise the various situations examined expand the viewpoint of the study without eliminating the mutual identifying features of the profession.