Among School Teachers: Community, Autonomy and Ideology in Teachers' Work

Exactly what are teacher communities? What are they after? How do they begin? Do they evolve through stages? How alike or different are they from one another? How are such communities built?

It is these important questions that Joel Westheimer turns to in Among Schoolteachers. This is a compelling and thoroughly readable account of two middle schools—one urban and one suburban--that attempt to build communities which will foster student growth and learning. With much fine-grained detail about how each professional community conducted its daily affairs, the author delves beneath the surface to reveal enormous differences in the goals, structures, processes, and beliefs of these communities and offers a new conceptual model for understanding teacher communities in practice. This book shatters prevailing beliefs and furthers our understanding of the ways in which teachers' relationships impact their work and their lives in schools.