ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses constraints upon the management of staff development in the contexts of the twin external pressures for control of the curriculum and demands for contractual accountability, socialisation and psychological factors, and leadership roles played by senior management itself. The author argues that the current rhetoric promoting more school-centred professional development, may simply be substituting one cluster of superordinate decision makers (the LEA and school senior management teams) for another (the DES and institutions of higher education) and that individual teachers perceive their needs to be increasingly subordinate to those collective needs of the institution perceived by its managers. He argues that there is an increasing need for participative management of staff development in which staff feel they have a stake and to which they can feel a commitment; and that managers need to have the necessary and appropriate skills to enable success to be achieved.
