The working and career lives of teachers have changed radically over the last two decades. Reforms have turned education into a commodity and pupils into consumers. Yet not since 1992 has there been a comprehensive overview of research findings on teachers working lives. This anthology plugs the gap by collecting various scholarly contributions and perspectives on teachers career trajectories and work lives.

The material includes an introduction to previous research within the field, presents a range of contemporary research and offers suggestions as to what lies ahead. Among the contributors are leading educational academics who describe a variety of national contexts, illustrating how problems and challenges relating to the teaching profession manifest themselves and are tackled in different countries.

The anthology also shows just how many aspects of teachers career trajectories and work lives transcend national boundaries. Common international themes include stronger ties between education and the economy, and a growing importance placed on how students skills relate to the perceived needs of the labour market. There is also a greater degree of political interference in curriculum goals and processes, and an expanding obsession with evaluation.

In many countries, a whole generation of teachers are reaching retirement age, changing the guard with a crop of new young recruits who are ever harder to attract. At a time when there is an increasing focus on issues such as teacher recruitment, retention and professional development, this anthology offers insight and inspiration to teacher educators and educational policy makers as well as to current and prospective teachers. It also aims at encouraging research into the field of teachers working lives.

to Teachers' Career Trajectories.- Teachers' Career Trajectories: An Examination of Research.- Career Stories as Gateway to Understanding Teacher Development.- Committed for Life? Variations in Teachers' Work, Lives and Effectiveness.- On the Unacknowledged Significance of Teachers' Habitus and Dispositions.- Teachers' Professional Learning and the Workplace Curriculum.- Careers Under Stress: Teacher Adaptations at a Time of Intensive Reform.- Postscript to Careers Under Stress: Teacher Adaptations at a Time of Intensive Reform.- The Careers of Urban Teachers: A Synthesis of Findings from UCLA's Longitudinal Study of Urban Educators.- Teacher Gender and Career Patterns.- Regenerating Teachers.- Listening to Professional Life Stories: Some Cross-Professional Perspectives.- Epilogue: Teaching Professions in Restructuring Contexts.