| This micro-ethnographic case study describes in a narrative format how the teachers in one high school social studies department constructed their departmental teacher culture. The purpose of the two year study was to render a cultural interpretation of the department in order to illuminate the form and content of the operant teacher culture and the effects of the culture on teacher practices.; The conclusions of the study are that the teachers in the department have developed a teacher culture that can be characterized as a community. They share a core set of beliefs about the purpose of education, what it means to be a teacher, and the place of students in the learning process. Further, their community values include a high regard for change and a unique balancing of individuality and collaboration. The effects of this cultural form and content is that the community has increased teacher expectations of themselves, and expanded both teacher and student opportunities to learn. Finally, the culture serves as a mediating force for the implementation of state mandated reform.; Framed in the larger body of research on teacher collegiality and collaboration, the teacher culture in this department was also found to constitute a "collaborative culture" as defined by McLaughlin (1994). As such, the study illuminated three facets of collaborative communities that have not been previously been discussed in the literature. First, the study highlights the importance of history in the development of collaborative teacher communities. Second, it provides insights into how a collaborative teacher culture can affect students' opportunities to learn. Finally, this study of a high school department suggests that a key characteristic of collaborative communities is that they give explicit attention to finding organizational structures that allow all members to maximize the intrinsic rewards of teaching. |
