Although there are reasons to believe that policies emphasising testing, accountability, assessments, evaluation and inspections have unintended and undesirable consequences for teaching practice, such reforms continue to be widely used in many countries in order to meet challenges in their educational systems. However, it is difficult to critically discuss how these types of policies relate to teaching practice without either losing societal, critical perspectives, or circumscribing teachers' agency in analysis. This article addresses that challenge by setting out a conceptual framework, aimed at contributing to an understanding of how these types of policies relate to teaching practice. Inspired by French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, a critical hermeneutical approach is suggested. It is argued that his discussion of the concept of practical reason can be used to depict teaching as existing in a field of tension between the regulatory and reflective dimensions of the practice. Further, it is argued that critical hermeneutics can frame a study of teaching, understood as practical reasoning, and provide a critique that is grounded in a discussion on how the mechanisms and assumptions behind (for example neoliberal) policy are mirrored in practice, without losing sight of either the agency of teachers or a societal perspective on teaching.