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This study examines the effects of four team-based structures on the organizational commitment of elementary teachers in an urban school district. The study model focuses on organizational commitment and includes three intervening, endogenous variables: teacher empowerment, school communication, and work autonomy. Team teaching had both direct and indirect effects on commitment to the school. Curriculum teamwork, governance teamwork, and community-relations teamwork each contributed indirectly to higher levels of teacher commitment. Research results suggest the need for organizational designs and procedures that reinforce teacher identification with and involvement in the school organization.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.Abstract Empowered teachers participate in critical decisions that directly affect teaching and learning. Empowering work environments may enhance professionalism, facilitate teacher leadership, improve the quality of work life, and enable effective implementation of school reform. Process-based views of empowerment suggest associations between school organizational structures and teacher empowerment, while psychological perspectives on empowerment suggest potential relationships between the phenomenon and cognitive and affective outcomes. Empowerment is considered in terms of teams and teamwork in schools, and relationships between empowerment and commitment to the school are examined.

Teacher education interventions designed to help individuals acquire understandings and skills needed to work effectively with culturally diverse student populations may not have significant impact unless teachers as learners are willing to explore beyond the familiar comfort zone of the majority cultural status quo. The purpose of this study was to assess preservice teachers' attitudes toward cultural diversity prior to their entry into multicultural education courses at an urban university. Respondents indicated strong support for implementing diversity issues in the classroom, and high levels of agreement with equity beliefs and the social value of diversity. They did not agree that assimilation to the dominant culture was a requisite for student success.