Teachers' professional orientation and their involvement in school policy making: results of a Dutch study

The policy of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science is to increase school autonomy. To be able to deal with such autonomy, schools must have a policy-making capacity. The level of teacher involvement appears to be an important indicator of the extent of this capacity. This paper is based on a study of the views of 1079 teachers from 98 schools for secondary agricultural education. Two main types of teachers were discovered: those with a more and those with a less extended professional orientation. While the former were more likely than the latter to be involved in policy making, neither was heavily engaged. The report concludes with a plea for a more participatory model of policy making in schools. copy;1998 BEMAS.