The Career of the Chicago Public Schoolteacher

1952/03/01 by Howard S. Becker · 3 citations
Social Sciences · #Demographic economics #Economics #Teacher Education and Leadership Studies

paper · doi:10.1086/221015

openalex publication_date 1952/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/26

Abstract

The careers of Chicago teachers exhibit "horizontal" movement among positions at one level of the school-work hierarchy in terms of the configuration of the occupation's basic problems presented by each rather than vertical movement between several such levels. One major career pattern consists in moving from the lower-class school in which careers usually begin; another consists in adjusting, over a period of years, to the problems of such schools. Having settled in a school, the teacher may be upset by changes in neighborhood structure or in the administrative personnel with whom she deals.

Cited by

• Sociologie des rencontres professionnelles : étudier l’événementiel pour repenser les carrières et les professions
• Teacher Sorting and Inequalities in Student Achievement: Unequal Exposures and Differential Returns to Teacher Qualifications
• Teacher Mobility, School Segregation, and Pay-Based Policies to Level the Playing Field

Related

• Teacher career paths, teacher quality, and persistence in the classroom: Are public schools keeping their best?
• Who Teaches and Where They Choose to Teach: College Graduates of the 1990s
• The Organizational Dynamics of Teacher Workplace Commitment: A Study of Urban Elementary and Middle Schools
• A Second Apprenticeship: The Career Transition of Trades Teachers.
• The Rise and Fall of the Teaching Profession: Prestige, Interest, Preparation, and Satisfaction Over the Last Half Century