DescriptionIn recent decades, educators have looked toward the middle school model as an appropriate bridge for children transitioning from elementary school to high school and from childhood to adolescence. However, there continue to be questions surrounding its cornerstone practice of interdisciplinary teaming. Using a qualitative single-case study design, this dissertation was designed to explore how teachers experience the phenomenon of teaming as a feature of middle school reform efforts. It examined how participation or non-participation on a team affected members of a school community whose approach to teaming included some teachers but excluded others. The purpose of this research was to generate better understandings of teachers’ lived experience to assist in efforts to improve the teaming model in middle schools. Much of the existing research on middle school reform documents the positive outcomes of teaming but neglects its impact on the larger school community and focuses, instead, on smaller groups of teachers who are part of the teams. By privileging the viewpoints of an under studied population of non-team teachers whose voices are often unheard in the literature on teaming’s normative benefits, this study was the first scholarly attempt to compare the experience of team teachers with that of non-team teachers. The significance of this research lay in its ability to explore unintended outcomes of this experience. Both team and non-team teachers chosen through a combination of criterion and convenience sampling took part in semi-structured phenomenological interviews. Data collection procedures also included the observation and analysis of school, district, and community documents. With multiple data sources and data collection methods, both methods triangulation and data triangulation were employed as strategies to improve the internal validity of this research. Results from this research indicate that teacher experience with middle school interdisciplinary teaming varies according to their team or non-team status. Team status affected teachers’ opportunities for professional growth, perceptions of instructional effectiveness, and sense of belonging and personal satisfaction. These findings have implications for both policy and practice. Educational policymakers need to understand how teaming affects all members of a school community, and practicing school leaders must be aware of the potential negative effects of teaming that remain under researched, discounted, or swept aside. Future research should be designed to add to the knowledge base of how middle school teaming affects all teachers in schools. In so doing, future research will provide support for school leaders charged with implementing or maintaining middle school reforms and, more specifically, designing and leading interdisciplinary teams in their middle schools.