To advance understanding of the issues concerning teachers' working conditions, the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario commissioned one of the authors to do an analytical review of literature on teachers' working conditions. This resulted in the publication, "Teacher Working Conditions That Matter: Evidence for Change." The…

Job satisfaction expresses the extent of match between teachers' expectation of the job, job requirements and the satisfaction derived from their jobs. There seems to be a growing discontentment towards teaching as a result of which standards of education are falling. Teachers are dissatisfied in spite of different plans and programmes which have…

This paper explores the notion of educational partnerships and reports on research on client-provider partnerships between full primary schools and external technology education providers for Year 7 and 8 New Zealand students (age range approx. 12 to 13 years). Educational reforms in New Zealand and the introduction of a more holistic technology…

The article presents some findings from the York-Jyvaskyla Teacher Professionalism project. The project was a follow-up study to earlier case-study research in six schools in Finland and six schools in England on the impact of educational reforms on teachers' work. Data were collected by re-interviewing a sample of teachers from the original…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between teacher autonomy and on-the-job stress, work satisfaction, empowerment, and professionalism. Using a reliable and valid measure of curriculum autonomy and general teaching autonomy (TAS), it was found that as curriculum autonomy increased on-the-job stress decreased, but there was…

Purpose: To investigate relationships between teacher empowerment and interpersonal level trust in the principal. Design/methodology/approach: Trust is a fundamental element in well-functioning organizations. Studies of empowerment, a motivational construct, have suggested that empowering employees is a key factor in managerial and organizational…

Induction has become an increasingly popular strategy for school districts across the country that seek solutions for high attrition rates among teachers who are new to the profession. In Illinois public schools, the attrition rate among new teachers can be as high as 40 percent after only five years on the job. Such turnover levels are costly for…

This article focuses on the challenge of teacher retention in rural schools in relation to the No Child Left Behind mandate, that school districts must attract and retain highly qualified teachers. This case study examines the extent to which a rural school enhanced teacher retention by overcoming the barriers that might otherwise have presented a…

This article presents a study that explores the relationship between charter schools and teacher autonomy. The theoretical framework is based on the charter school concept, whereby three policy levers--choice, deregulation, and accountability--lead to various goals for the charter school. One of the first and foremost of these is the enhancement…

This is a self-study of an elementary teacher's emotions during the year he took a sabbatical from a position as an education professor. He worked as an elementary classroom teacher, and he kept a journal of his daily experience as a teacher of a nongraded primary class. With the journal as a data source, the study examined the feeling…

This article shares the results of a study that explored the need, and consequential birth, of a new teacher support group for newly graduated elementary education majors. Constructed of a university supervisor and five newly graduated novice teacher's, this study examines their first semester as classroom teachers. Research related to the…

This paper reports on findings from a large sample survey in the states of India that account for two thirds of the children out of school. It then examines the feasibility of the central government's goals to ensure all children complete 5 years of school by 2007, and 8 years by 2010. These goals--more ambitious than the global EFA goals--are…

Research suggests that the relief (substitute) teacher should be viewed as an extremely important educational resource. Reviewed literature spanning the better part of twenty years indicates that in parts of Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, many students spend as much as one full year (or more) of their K-12 education having…

We surveyed 374 parents and 82 teachers in the Juarez, Mexico schools regarding their views of what makes an effective elementary school. The survey was a Spanish translation of an instrument used by Johnson (1998). Although both parents and teachers supported most of the factors associated with effective schools, they emphasized different aspects…

Research supports teacher preparation programs to recognize stress factors and to assist students and new teachers with effective coping mechanisms. Twenty-five to fifty percent of beginning teachers resign during their first three years of teaching (Fleener, 2001; Roulston, Legette, & Womack, 2005). Among all the causes, stress from teaching is…