This communication is part of an ongoing research, under a PhD in Education, with the objective of understanding the impact of the latter Portuguese legislation – Teaching Career Statute and its Teacher Performance Evaluation – namely on the teacher identity (re)construction, career and professional development.

The Portuguese Ministry of Education seems to devalue the significance of teachers’ beliefs on the ongoing changing process, since empirical researches on this topic indicate that the adoption of an attitude of resistance towards change may compromise the teacher’s future career and school development (Day, 2001, 2004; Goodson, 2008).

Current literature on professional development (Dean, 1991; Bell e Gilbert, 1996; Day, 2001, 2004; Silva, 2007) presents a recent concept, though of growing complexity and importance, especially in times of change, as the one we live in.

Nowadays, teacher professional development is given a greater emphasis, since it is perceived that, in the future, education will require a highly qualified teacher work, different from the one that has been attained so far (Dean, 1991).

In this area, Bell and Gilbert (1996) have carried out surveys that overviewed teacher development as a means of human promotion, and highlighted professional development because they believed it implied not only the use of different teaching activities but also the development of beliefs and conceptions which underlie those activities.

Thus, the teacher will adopt a learning attitude, choosing professional development as a learning process and not as a remediation one, as it begins his/her career  and extends through the entire professional life (Morais & Medeiros, 2007).

According to Day’s papers (2001), one can also acknowledge that from the interaction of different teacher professional experiences with the contexts in which teachers perform – from the classroom and the school to the social and political contexts – follows teacher reflection and action, which thus conditions the teachers’ attitudes towards the need of professional development.

In this sense, the professional development initiatives promoted by school groupings/training centres should help teachers “acquire and develop teaching strategies and techniques which may effectively promote the active construction of the students’ learning meaning and its self-regulation” (Morais & Medeiros, 2007: 35).

In a survey carried out at European context, Goodson (2008: 170) assumes that change shall only be “a means of symbolic political action, devoid of any personal or institutional commitment”, since educational reforms succeed when teachers view them as sources of inspiration and perceive them as objects needed to the reform.

It is in a complex and intentional context of change in teachers’ performance evaluation practices, which seek to combine it with their professional development, that our research questions arise: how does the latter legislation affect teachers’ professional development, particularly in what comes to pedagogical practice, school and professional investment?; what are the effects of the latter legislation upon students’ educational success?; and what are the emerging relations between professional development and teacher career progression?

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