| This study uses two complementary cultural perspectives---new institutional theory and new cultural theory---to explain teachers' participation in a three-year long professional development project set in a school-university partnership. To examine the teachers' use of cultural resources and negotiations of cultural messages about teaching and the purposes of teacher learning, the researcher employs interpretive methods of participant observation, interviews and document review. The researcher was a participant observer for the three-year duration of the professional development project.;While professional development is typically viewed as a variable for increasing student achievement, the findings of this study suggest that examining the professional development space in relation to the institutional configurations and cultural logics that makes it possible provides insight into how teachers use the professional development space to negotiate institutional messages about teachers and teaching. The professional development project involved teachers from across the K-12 continuum, and university mathematics instructors, and graduate students and professors from the school of education. District and university policies for accountability and outreach, respectively, shaped the professional development project agenda. Despite apparent common ground between partners during the planning stages, district and university reforms revealed divergent views of teachers that intersected in the professional development space, and which teachers negotiated in their professional development practice.;The cross-grade-level structure of the professional development project provided opportunities for teachers to gain valuable insight on teaching and learning mathematics at the various levels, as well as develop a collective sense that they were "all in the same boat," thereby chipping away at the proverbial "blame game." Teachers also used the professional development space to explore the complexities of teaching in low performing schools, including their perceptions of teachers as scapegoats, the problem of student persistence in mathematics, and the difficulty in assessing and teaching for conceptual understanding. But despite their concern with these challenges and ambiguities, the teachers used the professional development project agenda, which was structured around district mathematics standards, to reduce the uncertainties inherent in their work and focus their attention on matters they perceived to be within their realm of control. |
