ABSTRACT
Inquiry into teachers' professional development reflects two quite different points of departure. A first path, and the one most frequently trod, follows teachers' progress in mastering the complexities of classroom practice. Though dominated by a concern for the implementation of specific pedagogical or curricular innovations, these inquiries have also pursued broader curiosities about how teachers learn to teach, how they mature intellectually and professionally, and how they sustain engagement in their work over time. 1 A second path, less well developed, draws attention to the organizational and occupational conditions that affect teachers' incentives and opportunities to learn. This emerging body of research places professional development in the context of teachers' work, seeking the connections between the social organization of teaching and the professional development of teachers. These inquiries highlight the organizational contexts of teaching and the structure of teachers' careers. They attend less to discrete programmatic innovations than to the larger pattern of policies, practices, and circumstances that affect teachers' professional obligations and opportunities. 2 In this essay I pursue the second path, relying on data from a one-year study of staff development in thirty California school districts to illuminate the local policy choices that enable or constrain teachers' learning.
