Who Controls Teachers' Work? Power and Accountability in America's Schools

Who Controls Teachers' Work?: Power and Accountability in America's Schools, by Richard M. Ingersoll. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. 345 pp. $39.95 cloth. ISBN: 0-674-00922-3.

This book is of interest to persons in at least two areas of sociology: the sociology of education and the sociology of work. The title leads one to expect the book to be of concern to issues in education; but the first paragraph states clearly that work is the primary interest of the book, with teaching the work that is being studied. The author's perspective toward the organization of teaching as work results from his experience teaching in schools in both Canada and the United States, and the contrasting experiences between teaching in the two countries. Ingersoll became immediately aware of a lack of respect for teaching and teachers in the United States: a dissatisfaction with the ability to transmit academic knowledge to students and to transmit societal values, appropriate behavior, motivation, and other institutional expectations.

Ingersoll's interest in these contrasts became an interest in researching the associated issues of who controls teachers' work and who runs the schools. His analysis depends on Max Weber's discussion of bureaucracy, and his review of theory is excellent. Although Ingersoll does not mention ideal types during his...