Because it is not clear that teachers will volunteer for good professional development if it is made available, this study used surveys--including social network analysis--and interviews to examine why teachers did and did not participate in one school's high-quality study group. While all teachers were motivated by intrinsic incentives, two…

Teacher thinking research examines teachers' thought processes and makes suggestions for training. Organizational analysis stresses the importance of teacher commitment and redesign of existing schools in increasing teacher collegiality and participation. This article juxtaposes these two literatures and suggests ways to combine divergent images…

Educators have recently become more willing to realign the educational system. One approach is restructuring, which can take many forms. This study looks at three districts that restructured teaching, two with career ladders and one with shared governance. The reforms took two directions--professional and bureaucratic--which had important…

A conceptual framework for understanding student and teacher commitment is illustrated, using data from a field study of 10 urban high schools. Results indicate that alienation and commitment are multidimensional. Commitments of students and teachers are mutually reinforcing. Five school factors--relevance, respect, support, expectations, and…

This article develops a framework for assessing how differential incentive policies affect teacher commitment and identifies key workplace conditions contributing to commitment. The framework is used to assess effects of such differential incentive policies as merit pay and career ladders. Increasing participation, collaboration, and feedback is…

This book describes the chain stretching from President Nixon's announcement of the Experimental Schools Program in 1969 to the midpoint of its implementation in the Butte-Angels Camp School District (pseudonym for a small mountainous district 400 miles from Denver) in 1976. The story is told in some detail to illustrate the complexities of the…

Teacher networks used in California and Vermont are examined. Interviews, observations, and document analyses identified how teacher beliefs, teacher experience, social influences, and practical circumstances interacted with program goals and methods to shape teachers' experiences with networks, views of teaching and learning, and classroom…