This paper reports on a study of the perceptions of 10 teachers as they sought to gain acceptance for curriculum practices considered to be child-responsive. The teachers worked with 5- and 6-year-old children in schools where some perceived their child-responsive practices as innovative, introducing practices which differed from those already institutionalized in the school. The transactional nature of the curriculum implementation process is illuminated through narrative accounts constructed with the teachers. Collaborative efforts were made to understand and explain the complexities of using ideals to inform practice within the everyday routines for living in the workplace. The inquiry resulted in narratives which focus on dilemmas commonly faced by the teachers and on personal images orientating action in situations where dilemmas arise. It is argued that the constructs of teacher dilemmas and teacher images provide useful foci for reflexively examining everyday experiences in deciding the curriculum. Through use of these constructs, teachers and student-teachers may achieve greater insight into the practical world of teachers' work, where images of self in social relationships enter into decisions made about how to act to gain acceptance for practices associated with educational ideals. (Contains approximately 45 references.) (Author/LL)