Comunicação apresentada na European Conference on Educational Research, Lisboa, 2002; Ever since the 1930s, Organizational Psychology has been devoting a great deal of attention to the study of job satisfaction. This has happened for three main reasons: historical and/or cultural (from both a historical and a cultural viewpoint, increasing value has been attached to the quality of life at work, which is regarded more and more as a space of personal development); functional (not only for its intrinsic value as psychological variable directly affecting behaviour, but also because job satisfaction is a construct with implications and consequences on other attitudes, at individual as well as at organizational level); and practical (it is a variable which can be easily measured and used). For a number of years, also teacher job satisfaction has been recognized as extremely important for implementing any type of education reform, for involving the teacher in life-long learning, for the quality of the teaching-learning process, and for satisfaction with life in general. This is the framework of the present empirical study, conducted with the objective of clarifying the aspects of teaching to be encouraged and the psychological processes to be promoted so as to obtain the best possible adjustment (as condition of satisfaction) between teachers' personal features and a professional activity requiring very specific characteristics.