Teacher Temporal Orientation and Management of the Urban School Reform and Change Process

Abstract

To address the many changes that have occurred over the past several decades with regard to the inputs of the schooling process (students, teachers, facilities), the processes of schooling (new curriculums, multiculturalism, computer technology), and the outputs of schooling (test scores, social promotion, accountability, equal educational opportunity), urban school organizations have had to make enormous commitments to school reform and change. In this study, approximately 1,000 urban classroom teachers were surveyed with regard to their temporal orientation, their attitudes toward school change and reform, and their time investment behaviors. Using a multivariate discriminant analysis model, a statistically significant classification of urban classroom teachers, by age (younger than age 30 and older than age 50) and gender, was attained. Using a reduced sample of 507 classroom teachers, major differences were found in temporal orientations and willingness to participate in school reform activities across these age and gender groupings.