Influences of Shared Decision Making on School and Classroom Activity: Conversations with Five Teachers

In this article I report 5 teachers' understandings of how teacher participation in school decision making has affected school and classroom activity. The primary effects of broadened decision making were found in school changes in student assessment, curriculum frameworks, use of technology, and working with students who do not conform to school norms. The teachers reported little knowledge of effects on classroom practices. The strong school-level consequences and weak classroom-level consequences are discussed in terms of teachers' beliefs about their own competence, the persistence of the culture of teacher isolation, prevailing forms of politesse in schools, professional educators' uncertainty about what makes up excellence in schools, and information and decision-making overload.