In The Call to Teach, author David Hansen employs the idea of teaching as a vocation or calling to analyze and interpret case studies drawn from fieldwork. Based on a 3-year study of the everyday working lives of four teachers in a large urban setting—two work in a public high school, one in a Catholic high school for boys, and one in an independent middle school—this book provides a wealth of detail and insight. Hansen combines his findings with sources outside the standard education literature to develop an original conception of the meaning of a “calling,” one that is helpful in understanding both how and why these four teachers—and, by extension, others like them—are able to teach with conviction and success despite the difficulties and challenges presented by today’s schools. This artful marriage of philosophical and qualitative analysis will appeal to scholars and practitioners alike.


This book will serve as a supplemental text in graduate and undergraduate courses in teacher education, philosophy of education, foundations, curriculum theory, and qualitative research methods, and will be of particular interest to faculty and researchers in those fields and to all practitioners.