This book examines the experience and politics of teachers’ work, questions of teacher appraisal, and the struggles of the teachers’ action of 1984-86. A major section of the book charts the changing power relations between organized teachers and the State in Britain from 1900 to the late 1980s. The contributors to this volume write from a variety of perspectives, including conflict theory, socio-historical analysis, feminist analysis, diary-based ethnography, and interview-based research. With its sensitivity to this range of perspectives and its bringing together of the experimental aspects of teaching, as well as its class, gender and political relations, this book is an authoritative source for courses in education, sociology, history and social policy.