GoodWork Paper 55: Good Work in Pre-Collegiate Education: An Initial Map of the Terrain

Author(s): Wendy Fischman and Jennifer DiBara

Editor(s): Howard Gardner, Series Editor

Media: Paper

Description: For more than ten years, the GoodWork® Project has investigated a variety of professions and professionals. Our goal has been to illuminate “good work"—work that is high quality and socially responsible. We have conducted in-depth interviews with more than a thousand individuals in journalism, genetics, higher education, philanthropy, law, medicine, theater, and business in an effort to ferret out these professionals‘ beliefs and values, goals, perspectives on work, and ethical dilemmas. In our various publications we delineate how personal traits and professional conditions support or stifle an individual‘s ability to carry out “good work” during a time of fast-paced technological innovation and powerful market forces. With funding from the Ford Foundation, we have begun a small-scale study of “good work” in precollegiate education. Our goal is to understand how teachers carry out exemplary work in challenging contexts—specifically, within economically disadvantaged communities in urban areas. Put differently, we want to uncover the factors that allow teachers to do exemplary work when external conditions work against them. In carrying out this study, we plan to interview approximately thirty teachers in three different schools, each school nominated for its success against the odds. Half of the teachers will be identified as models of good work and half will form a more representative group. This latter group will help to contextualize the findings from the exemplary teachers. We hope that our findings will prove valuable to scholars, policymakers, and educators who want to promote good work in precollegiate education.