This paper explores a distributed leadership perspective on how leaders create contexts that build and support professional communities in schools. It is argued that professional community results from intentional coordination of social interaction among teachers through the design of structures in a situation of practice. School leaders put these…

Beyond some contracted minimum, salaried workers' hours are largely chosen at the worker's discretion and should respond to the strength of contract incentives. Accordingly, we consider the response of teacher hours to accountability and school choice laws introduced in U.S. public schools over the past two decades. Total weekly hours of full-time…

This article addresses teachers' use of their professional time. With the support of substantive grounded theories from two separate studies--focusing on two "invisible" parts of teachers' work: recesses and off-the-clock work--we aim to conceptualize some patterns in contemporary work of teachers and discuss them in the light of…

This account describes and analyses some of the processes which are important for teachers to maintain a creative role in promoting learning while in a climate of managerialism and performativity. It does so from the stance of someone who works with teachers and schools on a minority interest in current times--learning. Processes needed to combat…

A belief in individualism and opportunity is deeply ingrained in the American character. Anyone, the litany goes, has a chance to make a fortune, ascend the corporate ladder, gain election to public office, hit a home run, or earn a college degree if only he or she will draw on a combination of talent and dedication. Yet nowhere is this clash of…

The recent industrial action taken by the Association of University Teachers (AUT) has given the issue of academic pay high prominence in the UK press. There appears to be a remarkable consensus that higher education academic salaries are too low, relative to other groups of workers in the UK, and that this is leading to an academic "brain…

With an inadequate supply of qualified teachers, education stakeholders continue to investigate teacher attrition issues and induction/mentoring practices to improve retention rates, especially in the critical first years of teaching. What types of support do beginning teachers value, and what do they actually receive? What types of support do…

Educators concerned with diversity, equity, and human rights in schools share their personal and professional narratives as impetus for developing suggestions and strategies designed to help teachers, students, and administrators deepen their understandings of gender identity educational issues in an effort to support transitioning teachers in…

This comparative study explores the experience of two first-year teachers in starkly different school systems, one in a small city on the northern plains and the other in a Midwest urban community. Using this comparative method, the authors looked at the similarities and differences of two different educational settings to collect data regarding…

An understanding of teachers' job satisfaction is needed to understand teachers' work attitude and work behavior and to provide inputs for effective school administration. A summary of the existing works in China on teachers' overall and different dimensions of job satisfaction and the effects of individual factors as a reference for researchers…

Part-time faculty has become an important labor force in Chinese colleges and universities. The number of them has risen rapidly and its structure varies in different types of higher education institutes (HEIs), which results from integration of the social motivation and the inner motivation of schools' reform. From the institutional point of…

Scores from a revised version of the School Level Environment Questionnaire (SLEQ) were validated using a sample of teachers from a large school district. An exploratory factor analysis was used with a randomly selected half of the sample. Five school environment factors emerged. A confirmatory factor analysis was run with the remaining half of…

This Issues Brief uses data from Schools and Staffing Surveys (SASS) conducted in 1987-88 and 1993-94 to examine teachers' sense of community in U.S. public and private schools. The brief examines teachers' perceptions of: (1) the extent to which staff members share common goals, beliefs, and expectations with respect to schooling; (2) the extent…

Provides a look at some recurring day care problems from the perspectives of four groups: owner-directors of day care centers, licensing representatives, teachers, and parents. (ED)

Discusses the 1972 policy of the Virginia Community College System that removed faculty tenure except for those who already possessed tenure or had been recommended for tenure. (PG)