Teachers’ responsibility and expectations: Dependent on the school organisation?

Abstract

This article presents findings from a qualitative case study focusing on teachers’ communication concerning expectations and responsibilities in different schools. The study indicates the following: (1) the connection between structural expectations and responsibility is important, (2) different expectation structures provide different opportunities for collective responsibility, and (3) expectations from others and towards others in a learning community can limit or expand opportunities to learn from each other. These findings enable a discussion on how teachers’ responsibility depends on schools’ expectations and also raise questions about teachers’ expectations towards themselves and the quality of the schools’ expectations towards the teachers.