Collegiality was cited in the post-McCrone Agreement as a vital quality for a professional teaching force in Scotland in the twenty-first century. The Agreement directed schools to henceforth operate more collegially and it was anticipated that this recommendation, alongside the new two-tier promotion system, would facilitate the transformation of the currently hierarchical school culture into a more collegiate one. Drawing on data concerning the relationship of a small group of Scottish primary teachers with their head teacher, and their attitudes to local and national educational innovations, including the post-McCrone Agreement, this article suggests that such an assumption is problematical. The tendencies of teachers to adopt a subordinate persona, and to comply with the wishes of the hierarchy despite their own professional reservations, point towards the existence of a hegemonic system in which collegiality has little locus.