Changing and sustaining teachers' expectations through professional development in literacy

The problem of entrenched low teacher expectations of student achievement for children in low-income communities is well documented. In this paper we examine the ways in which teachers' expectations of student achievement in two such communities changed over the course of 6 months' professional development in literacy, and how well those changed expectations were sustained over the following year. Pre- and post-course questionnaires and follow-up interviews ascertained changes in expectations and the teachers' feelings of self-efficacy. The conditions required to achieve these changes in most of the participants' expectations involved a complex interplay of new knowledge in the form of redefining the reading task and how to teach it, unanticipated changes in the children's achievement and teachers' feelings of self-efficacy in believing that they could make a difference. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.