This chapter provides background information about the teachers surveyed as part of the OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) and the schools in which they work. The first part of the chapter focuses on demographic characteristics such as the age and gender of teachers, their formal education and their previous work experience. The second section of the chapter provides a profile of the schools in which teachers work, with particular emphasis on school background information, resources, composition of students at the school, the level of autonomy enjoyed at the school level and school climate. In addition, this chapter begins to look at issues of equity in education systems by examining the distribution of teachers across the systems and also provides a basis for analyses conducted in subsequent chapters of this volume.