In research on teacher professional development and school reform attention for the role of teacher agency has been growing significantly during the last decade. The objective of this study is to create a model with the potential to view professional development and school reform from a teacher agency perspective at multiple levels. The model of…

Prior research suggests that teachers' positive perceptions of a reform are key when it comes to its successful implementation. The importance of teachers as enactors of change efforts results from their close tie to what is happening in the classroom. This suggests that without persuaded change agents, innovations are unlikely to be implemented…

The article discusses a study undertaken to ascertain what influences primary school teachers in developing nations perceive as important for curriculum decision making; to compare these with similar findings from developed nations; and to determine factors that inhibit goal achievement in teaching situations in developing and developed nations.…

We analyse two narratives of teacher-facilitator teams producing elementary science curricula and disseminating them to their peers. We draw on these stories to interpret how teacher-facilitators position themselves with respect to other educators (e.g. peer teachers and development-team members), to real and imagined students and parents, to…

The systemic approach to reform recognizes that schools are part of a complex system of expectations and that reform plans must recognize the diverse interests at play in any reform. While systemic approaches understand that the interaction among factors influencing change are complex and that piece-meal change is problematic, there is a danger…

School change is examined using the experiences of local educational change projects in Sweden. Specifically discussed are Swedish educational development centers that encourage experiments directly involving teachers and the SSK experiment in Uppsala designed to give teachers, parents, and pupils a greater say and more responsibility in…