Much research on educational innovations treats them as purposeful endeavours, initiated with a clear goal for improvement of practice and eventually evaluating the fidelity of their implementation as well as effectiveness. However, innovative practices in schools can have many sources and their implementation often takes a surprising and…

Findings of a longitudinal multiple case-study on early career teachers (following-up, semi-structured interviews at four moments during the first year of teaching) are presented to substantiate and analytically unravel their professional development (encompassing a technical, a moral, a political and an emotional dimension) as resulting from the…

Reporting on 12 case studies of student teachers, this paper examines how experiences during teacher education affect graduates' decision on job entrance. Interpretative data-analysis reveals that powerful sources of the shift in motivation to enter teaching concern interactions in which the person of the teacher is at stake. These mainly involve…

During the last two decades teachers in many countries have found themselves facing new demands and changes. In his "intensification thesis" Apple, M.W. [(1986). "Teachers and Texts. A political economy of class and gender relations in educations." London: Routledge] made a powerful attempt to conceptualize and explain these…

Teachers are facing an increasing number of changes in their job context, many of which significantly affect their work lives. This study offers a theoretical understanding of the changes in teachers' working conditions, starting from the intensification thesis. The case study of a Flemish (Belgian) elementary school shows the existence of various…

This paper reviews the literature on teaching conditions, stress variables, and demands placed upon teachers, focusing on the situation in Belgium. Researchers examined whether and how teachers in Flemish elementary schools experienced intense, stressful, and negative working conditions, focusing on which forms of stressors and negative conditions…

During the last two decades teachers in many countries have found themselves facing new demands and changes. In his "intensification thesis" Apple made a powerful attempt to conceptualize and explain these changes: the growing economic and management oriented perspective on education leads to intensification of teachers' work, implying deskilling…

Based on narrative-biographical work with teachers, the author argues that teachers' emotions have to be understood in relation to the vulnerability that constitutes a structural condition of the teaching job. Closely linked to this condition is the central role played by teachers' "self-understanding"--their dynamic sense of identity--in…

Teachers' professional learning takes place in an organisational context, in which issues of power, influence, and control can play an important part. In this article, we argue that learning how to deal with these inevitable micropolitical aspects of their work lives, constitutes an important dimension in teachers' professional development and…

Reconstructs the main sources of teachers' sense of vulnerability through an analysis of primary school teachers professional biographies. Finds these sources of vulnerability: administrative or policy measures; professional relationships in the school; and limits to teachers' efficacy. Suggests autobiographical reflection and story-telling as…

This study examined 10 elementary school teachers' narratives of their teaching experiences to determine the political aspects of that development, particularly the processes of control, power, dominance, conflict and ideology that interacted with the teacher's developing sense of the working conditions necessary for proper job performance. Data…