This study examined participants' beliefs and practices regarding power with personal demographic variables (gender, age, degree level, and years of experience) and school-related variables (level of school employed, type of school community, and overall citizenship) on power beliefs and practices. A principal component analysis of 668 survey…

This report highlights the status and working conditions of faculty in American community colleges, and compares their responses to survey questions with those of faculty at research universities, doctoral universities, masters colleges and universities, and baccalaureate colleges. The report is organized around defining themes of academic life.…

This study, begun in October 1987, was conducted to explore the effect of particular contexts of schooling on educational outcomes and to provide a comprehensive look at what and how context conditions affect teaching and learning. The study design integrates 3 years of field research in 16 public and private high schools in 2 states and analyses…

Findings of a study that examined the implementation of a teacher incentives initiative in four countries--Haiti, Liberia, Somalia, and Yemen--are presented in this paper. The countries are participating in a 10-year initiative founded in 1984, Improving the Efficiency of Educational Systems (IEES). Methodology involved interviews with…

Findings of a study that examined teachers' personal reasons for resigning are presented in this paper, which develops a model of teacher persistence. Interviews were conducted with 57 teachers who resigned from primary schools, and various regional and Head Office positions with the New Wales (Australia) Department of School Education during the…

In the wake of administrative reforms, curriculum revisions, and assessment requirements introduced in New Zealand in the late 1980s that increased workloads and stress for teachers, a survey studied the roles and workloads of primary school teachers. How workloads have changed, and how resulting pressures affected teachers' professional work,…

Kentucky's college and university composition programs have begun to deal with the issues of equity and quality for graduate teaching assistants and part-time faculty. Survey questionnaires were sent to writing program administrators at 40 of the Commonwealth's public and private institutions. Results indicated that composition and rhetoric…

Educational researchers have begun exploring teachers' beliefs and construction of knowledge through their use of metaphors. In this study, undergraduate (N=104) and graduate (N=102) education students were asked to respond to open-ended statements concerning what teachers, students, and classrooms were like. The subjects also responded to lists…

Descriptive data about teachers in America were analyzed in terms of the international dimension of education and the social context in which schools operate. Characteristics of teachers, such as age, gender, race, experience, education, and the conditions under which they work, provided a profile of the "typical" teacher. The model…

To overcome teacher isolation and help make teaching a more attractive profession, educators might consider a peer support system based on the Stanford Collegial Evaluation Program. This paper describes the program's background, functioning, barriers to successful implementation, and how to neutralize them. The Stanford program uses a peer…

In response to education reform mandates, rewards and incentives such as career ladder and master teacher programs are being designed to break lock-step salary schedules and to retain competent teachers. While these "pay-for-performance" plans seem acceptable to taxpayers, few realize that such approaches have already been tried and…

This collection of papers is the final product of a project designed to explore the ways in which high schools as organizations facilitate and frustrate teachers' ability to be engaged with their work. Ordinary schools were chosen as the research subjects: two in high socioeconomic (SES) settings; two in middle SES settings, and two in low SES…

This report synthesizes research on attracting and maintaining quality teachers in a profession increasingly labeled mediocre, reviews pertinent literature, and suggests ways principals can motivate teachers, and makes recommendations for reducing current science and math shortages. Those entering the teaching profession are no longer drawn…

A 1985 mail survey of 97 rural schools and 53 coastal (urban/suburban) schools in Queensland, Australia, investigated teacher characteristics, problems, and needs. Respondents included 504 rural teachers, 215 rural parents, 405 coastal teachers, and 179 coastal parents. The results confirm many previous findings about teaching in rural Australia.…

Teaching is not considered a desirable occupation in China, and many teachers are unhappy in their jobs. Education is the weak sector within the bureaucracy. Because it has been neglected for a long time, especially during the Cultural Revolution, many people, including government officials, do not take the problems of education seriously. From…