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summary181SOur findings are relevant to those involved in career management in education. The Netherlands has a relatively large number of teachers who have been teaching for more than 15 years. In this ‘midlife’ stage of careers, some teachers run the risk of running out of enthusiasm and losing commitment (Cooper & Mackenzie, 2011; Day et al., 2007; Verloop, 2013). Given the size of this group and the need for professional, committed teachers, we also investigated whether teachers from schools with and those from schools without an explicit vision differ per career stage. We can conclude that an explicit school vision is especially important in the first five years of a teaching career. But even after the first years of the career, an explicit school vision continues to make the difference for teachers. The main conclusion of this thesis is that Waldorf schools, traditional educational renewal schools and Reformed schools should cherish their explicit school vision as the driver of a school culture that fosters a professional learning community and serves as a basis for commitment.A number of caveats should be taken into account when interpreting the findings of this dissertation. A first remark concerns the number of participating schools in the quantitative surveys. Our aim was to test the findings of the qualitative studies from chapters 2 and 3 on a larger scale. To generalize these findings, a larger sample size is desirable for further research. Furthermore, in the two quantitative follow-up studies we opted for a cross-sectional approach, in which data were collected at a particular point in time. Given the cross-sectional design, we can only make statements about relations, not on causality. To get a picture of causalities, we should use longitudinal research to collect data from the same teachers over a longer period of time. Another limitation of this study concerns the selection of schools. Our selection of schools was based on what the schools wrote in their school guide and on their website, but we did not check to what extent the educational visions formulated on the website and in the school guide were translated into daily educational practice, a so-called “implementation fidelity check” (De Bilde, Van Damme et al., 2013, p.230). This would be desirable for further research. Finally, it is conceivable that the data collection for the fourth and fifth chapters was influenced by the period in which this took place: a period characterized by various measures to contain the spread of Covid, including lockdowns during which education took place online.For follow-up research, it seems worthwhile to investigate whether an explicit school vision is also important for other outcome measures related to the quality and continuity of education, such as job satisfaction, absenteeism, and early retirement of teachers. Ultimately, of course, it would be especially interesting to discover in follow-up research what a school culture that fosters a professional learning community and positive teacher commitment mean for the learning and learning performance of students.Ester Moraal.indd 181 22-09-2023 16:13