Teaching circles: a way forward for part-time teachers in higher education?

Part-time teachers represent a growing challenge to universities' quality assurance and developmental processes. This paper describes an attempt to meet this challenge through the adoption of 'teaching circles' (TCs) in four contrasting case-study schools. Analysis of outcomes enables identification of the variables affecting the apparent success of TCs as a strategy, some of which are associated with the particularities of context. Underlying these particularities, however, the general question of how participants come to feel 'ownership' of change initiatives emerges as a central issue. Three inter-related processes are shown to be involved: leadership, attribution of causation and social integration. The paper concludes that this analysis has implications beyond the TC project and provides both key practical pointers and, potentially, a useful analytical tool for researchers studying programmes of organizational change.