Everyday Acts of Resistance in Teachers’ Work: Leaders Making Distinctions Between Responsibility and Accountability

International studies mark a shift in the language of teachers from professional autonomy to safety induced by compliance measures. What is not well-documented is how teachers resist the pervasive, negative effects of accountability regimes. This paper contrasts teachers’ most creative classroom practice and professional learning with the effect of externally imposed accountability requirements. School leader research conversations support an argument that leaders who remained future-focused on responsibility initiated a culture in which resistance, to being governed by retrospective practices associated with accountability, was possible. Everyday acts of resistance, however, are vulnerable to institutional capture when regimes of accountability become normalised.