1 Teacher teamwork - supportive cultures and coercive policies? Franziska Vogt Lancaster University Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the British Educational Research Association, University of Exeter, England, 12-14 September 2002. Abstract Within school improvement strategies, teachers' teamwork is seen as crucial: policy changes seek to promote a new understanding of teachers working together in developing their school as an organisation, in processes of quality management such as peer observation, as well as teamwork in forms such as joint planning. New managerial approaches are calling for a culture change towards teamwork; recent reforms in education in many European countries are based on a new managerial ideology. This paper draws on research on the enactment of new managerial policies in primary schools in England and Switzerland, with a particular focus on teachers' teamwork. The research involved ethnographic fieldwork in a smaller and larger primary school in each country, as well as the analysis of relevant education policy. The findings from the four case studies allow contextualising new managerial policies in primary schools, revealing their inherent systemic contradictions and tensions in relation to teamwork. Educational reform in both countries resulted in teachers finding themselves negotiating contradictory pressures, ranging from experiences of culture changes towards more teamwork and an organisational culture supportive for school development, to increased competitiveness through policies of teacher performance management, and limited scope for individual professional approaches in teaching due to requirements such as joint planning within the school. Differences between England and Switzerland are examined in relation to differences in the emphasis of reform as well as traditions of teachers' professionalism and accountability. Introduction Teamwork can be defined as a group of people interacting and co-operating in a work-related action. It involves hands-on working together, as well as processes of organisational planning, decision-making and development. In the case of teachers, the core activity of teaching is largely done in isolation from other teachers; however, teacher teamwork has received increasing attention by researchers and policy-makers as a way of school improvement . It is, however, not evident from research literature exactly what comprises teachers' teamwork: teachers' teamwork could range from collegial interactions as researched by Zahorik , to the concept of collaborative cultures to a narrow definition of teamwork as related to teaching and the work in the classroom . In this paper I will examine practices of teacher teamwork, which are related to teaching in an immediate way, such as planning together. I wish to emphasise however, that this kind of teamwork should not be seen as the only relevant way of teachers working together and that teachers working together in running and developing the school as