Securing the quality of Australian education is a key policy target, and teaching workforce development has long been identified as the means to that end. This case of personalised professional learning in a school through a series of interactions between teachers and university-employed teacher educators (as academic coaches) speaks to teachers’ perceptions of being on the receiving end of such policy targets. Teachers’ experiences of working with an external coach was transformative for some, valuable for most, but not suited to everybody. The analysis of teacher participant data revealed three paradoxes in the delicate matters of power, choice and agency associated with being coached by outsiders. We apply a Bourdieuan lens of ‘symbolic power’ to make sense of these inherent power relations, and anticipate such insights will be informative to teacher educators involved in developing teacher coaching programs in the future, both at system and school levels.

确保澳大利亚教育质量是一项重要的政策目标，长期以来，教师队伍的发展一直被认为是实现这一目标的手段。在学校中，通过教师与大学聘用的教师教育者（作为学术教练）之间的一系列互动，进行个性化专业学习的案例说明了教师对处于此类政策目标接受端的看法。老师与外部教练一起工作的经历对某些人而言具有变革性，对大多数人而言有价值，但并不适合所有人。对教师参与者数据的分析揭示了与局外人指导相关的力量，选择和代理等微妙问题中的三个悖论。我们运用布尔迪安的“象征性权力”镜头来理解这些固有的权力关系，