Teaching as a career: a perspective from Hong Kong senior secondary students

This study examined the views of teaching as a career choice held by Hong Kong students in their final year of upper secondary school (Secondary Seven). Significant differences were found between students' interest in teaching and demographic characteristics such as gender, religious beliefs, household income and parents' education levels, as well as their public examination scores and streams of study. Three attractive and three deterrent factors were identified among the reasons influencing students' choice of teaching as a career, respectively. Among 20 listed occupations, teaching was ranked relatively high by the students both as the occupation they ‘most wanted’ and ‘most respected’. The paper discusses the implications of these findings and draws conclusions which may be helpful to teacher education providers and policy makers on measures to recruit prospective students to initial teacher education.     

STEM Professionals Entering Teaching: Navigating Multiple Identities

In this qualitative study, we identify the complexity of the transitioning identities of four STEM career changers to better inform teacher education programs on how to be more mindful of the needs of this population as they return to the life of a student again on their path toward a new career in teaching. Findings suggest the career changers relied upon their identities from their previous careers to engage students in science; however, support is needed, both in terms of the coursework and returning to be a student again. Additionally, support is necessary for intervening in difficult placements and work situations as these STEM career changers make the transition to their newly chosen career of teaching science.     

An Inquiry Into the Development of Teacher Identities in STEM Career Changers

National shortages of math and science teachers have led to a variety of strategies and programs to attract second career professionals into teaching. This qualitative study explores the development of professional teaching identities in six STEM career changers in a post-baccalaureate pre-service teacher credential program in California. Findings suggest the career changers relied upon skills developed in their previous careers to navigate through a new profession; however, returning to the life of a student again was difficult. Additionally, the career changers in this study valued interacting with their traditional aged peers in the program as these relationships were beneficial to their own socialization into teaching as they developed their teacher identities.     

Unbecoming teachers: towards a more dynamic notion of professional participation

This article considers teacher professionalism from a neglected perspective. It analyses assumptions about the dynamics of professional participation implicit within competing academic and policy constructs of professionalism, including the currently iconic concept of ‘communities of practice’. All entail notions of becoming and being a professional. However, data from the project ‘Transforming Learning Cultures in Further Education’ (TLC) reveal significant instances of ‘unbecoming’: a majority of the tutors participating in the project were heading out of further education (FE) teaching. This illuminates a broader problem of exodus from the sector, in a political context which privileges economic goals and targets at every level, and in which the current climate of performativity increasingly impacts upon pedagogical relationships—contextual conditions which are also highly relevant to schooling and higher education. Drawing on exemplar case studies of two tutors, and on the theorization of learning cultures emerging from the TLC project, a Bourdieusian analysis of these dynamics is developed in terms of the interaction of habitus and fields, and ‘communities of practice’ critiqued. Paying particular attention to policy‐driven changes in and to the field of FE, and to the cross‐field effects in FE of policies in other sectors of education and beyond, the article argues for a more dynamic notion of professional participation. This might underpin ‘principles of procedure’ for improving teaching and learning, and policies to support diverse forms of teacher professionalism throughout the education system.     

Challenging Traditional Sex Role Stereotypes in Careers Education Broadcasts: the reactions of young secondary school pupils

The ways in which television presents images of male and female roles to the young have recently been subjected to much scrutiny and criticism. Educational television has the scope to contribute to changes in the balance of sex role portrayal but little is known of the likely effects of modifications. This paper reports an experimental study of young secondary school pupils’ reactions to careers education materials in which men and women are shown in occupations traditionally associated with the opposite sex. Children viewing counter‐stereotyped programmes are found to be no less stereotyped in their career beliefs than peers viewing a ‘traditional’ programme or controls who view no programme. The results are discussed in terms of the resilience of sex role and career beliefs in early adolescence and it is concluded that intervention attempts will need to be more extensive and more protracted.     

Romantic expectations and harsh realities: tertiary access to the rescue

This paper examines the educational ambitions of adults from a disadvantaged area in Australia who returned to study at a further education institution as a means to access higher education. The study examines the significance and influence of romance, gender and social class on their formal learning, and the delaying influence of these factors in realising lifelong learning aspirations. It draws on written testimonies of students’ early expectations and beliefs about learning, education and life choices, their current beliefs and future tertiary and career expectations to argue that romantic conceptions of early motherhood/marriage have a negative impact on women from low socio‐economic backgrounds. The focus is on self‐reporting of the impact of early parenthood and/or the consequences of premature dissolution of a romantic relationship on educational aspirations or opportunity. We define the basic concept of romance as concerning love and ‘living happily ever after’, incorporating love and people’s social aspirations, hopes and dreams, offering the promise of a better life. We find, one, that the discourse of romance had a very powerful early gendered influence on the female students’ educational aspirations, and on their ‘enlightenment’ after romance ‘went wrong’ which contributed to their educational disadvantage; and two, that exclusion from education is a motivating factor in returning to learning as an adult and strongly influences parental aspirations for those with children.     

Social justice and the reconstruction of teaching

In this paper we argue that conceptions of what constitutes the ‘effective teacher’ and what counts as career progression are being reshaped by the Teacher Training Agency. One initiative which is central to this is the National Professional Qualification framework. We argue that the framework neglects teachers’ responsibilities in relation to social justice and that the teaching profession is being increasingly differentiated in ways which may disadvantage particular groups of children and teachers. Issues of governance, representation and accountability in teacher education cannot be ignored and connect with wider debates in the public sector both in the UK and elsewhere.     

Year 3 student career choices: Exploring societal changes in constructions of masculinity and femininity in career choice justifications

This article reports on a survey of 332 Year 3 students from 14 Australian schools. We are interested in exploring Year 3 primary school student aspirations and what this data shows us about any societal changes, or not. This study is timely as it reports on contemporary data within an Australian educational context marked by significant investment in improving equitable gendered participation, particularly for girls entering STEM. Drawing on conceptions of masculinities and femininities as social constructions, we report on the participants’ desired occupations and explore their justifications for such choices. The top three occupations for boys included careers in professional sports, STEM-related jobs and policing/defence. Girls reported wanting to be teachers, veterinarians or to work in the arts as their top choices. As part of our exploration, we found issues of money and power—traditionally coded masculine—and conceptions of love and care—traditionally coded feminine—ingrained in boys’ and girls’ justifications for their desired trajectories. Findings are significant for illustrating how traditional constructions of gender are ingrained in career choices in the early years of primary school and how policy agendas to widen participation need to start early in life.     

Book Reviews

The present study explored the relationships of preservice teachers’ levels of commitment to teaching and their beliefs and perceptions of teaching as a career. Participants were undergraduate students enrolled in a teacher education program at a major university in the southeast. Sixty‐seven preservice teachers completed a survey in which they rated the importance of 20 factors for influencing their choice of career. Additionally, among the survey respondents, nine students were selected from three groups of preservice teachers for in‐depth interviews: (1) students who were currently considering teaching as a career choice, (2) students who were undecided about their future teaching career, and (3) students who were no longer considering teaching as a career. Overall, findings from this study revealed that preservice teachers’ understanding of their goal of becoming teachers and interpretations of their motivation for teaching were unique, yet the types of influences on their career choices were similar across participants’ stories.     

Gender balance in teaching debate: tensions between gender theory and equality policy

This paper draws on findings from a research project funded by the Scottish Executive which analysed the gender balance in teaching and explored the underlying reasons for the decline in the number and proportion of men, particularly in secondary schools. As in other developed countries, such as Australia, the USA and Canada, the proportion of men entering teaching has declined fairly rapidly over a ten‐year period. At a time when women are participating in paid work in greater numbers than ever before, their concentration in certain areas of work, particularly in the service sector and the ‘caring’ professions, is increasingly apparent. Despite the clarity of this trend, it is evident that responses from academics and policy‐makers have been very different, with some policy‐makers linking the declining proportion of men in teaching with the problem of boys’ underachievement and a perceived ‘crisis in masculinity’, whilst some feminist writers have questioned these views, drawing on recent gender theory which questions the utility of the binary categories of ‘man’ and ‘woman’, instead suggesting that gender is performed and may have little to do with the body of the person who is involved in the particular performance. Sex and gender thus become decoupled, with the focus on individual actors freely choosing the version of gender they wish to practice. This line of argument suggests that the sex of the teacher is irrelevant; what really matters is the way in which they perform gender in the classroom. Work on the gender balance in teaching therefore provides an opportunity to reflect on underlying tensions in gender theorising and policy‐making. The paper begins by considering tensions between modernist and post‐structuralist accounts of sex and gender. Having outlined the underlying theoretical tensions, it then goes on to consider the accounts given by teachers and students of the reasons for their own choice of teaching as a career, their experiences in teaching and their views of the reasons underlying the declining proportion of men in teaching. The aim is to consider whether students and teachers believe that sex is an important variable structuring their lives, including their decision to become a teacher and their experiences of working as a teacher, or whether they regard gender as something which is chosen from a wide repertoire of options and is relatively free from the constraints of embodiment. In relation to research on the gender balance in teaching, the paper concludes by suggesting that there is a need to make use of the idea of gender as performance, whilst at the same time holding on to the foundational concepts of ‘woman’ and ‘man’. This is necessary to monitor and understand the career paths and underlying power relations of women and men in teaching and to transform these over time.     

The academic career: a study of subjectivity,gender and movement among women university lecturers

Changes in the higher education system have resulted in increased demands on effectiveness and marketisation. These demands have changed what it means to do academic work. In this study, 19 female academic lecturers have been interviewed in order to get them to reflect upon their opportunities and conditions in career. The aim is to analyse how this specific group manoeuvres; that is their 'becoming subjectivity' in academic career. This means an interest in analysing their locations, positions as well as their material and discursive conditions. The results show how many see teaching as important in career, but also as a trap that restrains them in their chances of research advancement. Several express that a lot of teaching drain the time and energy needed for other opportunities in career. There are also a few who experience teaching as a place where people actually collaborate more than compete and find alternative career strategies. Even so, these women appear caught in their careers, which can relate to gender, and to the experience of ‘incapacity’ to find directions in a more competitive structure.     

‘To Be Or Not To Be An Educator?’:The Dilemma Facing the Engineering Teacher

The aim of the research was to examine the output of the Center for Technological Education (CTEH) in relation to its main goal, the training of teachers for the technological education system. To this end, a follow-up study of graduates from 1976 to 1984 was conducted and their occupations analysed and classified. It was found that only 22% were employed as ‘Educators’, 6% as ‘Educators in Industry’ while the rest, 72%, were engaged in various engineering and technological occupations. The distribution by sex of CTEH graduates employed as ‘Educators’ was 17.2% for males and 33.4% for females. Graduates in teaching jobs expressed more satisfaction in their work than those engaged in other occupations. The main reasons given for abandoning teaching were: low salary, lack of significant advancement opportunities, dullness, dissatisfaction and discipline problems. It is recommended that an effort be made to encourage women to become qualified as teachers of technological subjects, and that a way be found for engineering teachers to combine work in industry with leaching in the technological education system. This paper is based on the findings of a follow-up study of graduates of the Center for Technological Education for the years 1976 to 1984.     

Strengthening and sustaining professional learning in the second year of teaching

The data discussed in this paper derive from post‐lesson and end‐of‐year interviews with 17 teachers in their second year of teaching. They form part of a longitudinal study which first tracked these teachers through their initial postgraduate teacher education programme and induction year. In the light of earlier analysis, which had highlighted both the enduring importance of individuals’ dispositions towards their own learning and the profound sense of professional isolation that some teachers experience once the support of their induction year is withdrawn, this paper focuses specifically on the interplay between teachers’ orientations towards their own professional learning and the nature of the learning environments in which they are working. The complex interrelationships between these two dimensions are illuminated by six case studies, which offer strong support to those who have challenged exclusive conceptualisations of ‘learning’ as either ‘construction’ or ‘participation’. The findings have important implications for all those responsible for the professional education of beginning and early career teachers, especially as they respond to the government launch in England of a new ‘national framework’ intended (eventually) to offer opportunities for Masters level professional learning to all newly qualified teachers.     

Teacher Educators: hidden professionals?

The pace of change in today's society means that there is an ongoing need for teachers to learn, have new knowledge and use new pedagogical approaches to meet the needs of their pupils. For many teachers, this requires redefining their identity as teachers and what ‘teaching’ means in 21st century learning environments. These changes also require teachers to be supported in learning to ‘teach’ in different ways that are relevant to their own individual needs and to the contexts in which they work throughout their career. In this article, it is argued that a more integrated and collaborative approach to teacher education is needed with better understanding of those who take up the roles of teacher educator across a teacher's career. With a particular emphasis on ‘teacher educators’ working in school to support teachers' career-long professional learning it is argued that currently many do not recognise themselves as teacher educators nor are they recognised by those they work with as teacher educators. Drawing on an empirical study carried out with mentors in schools in Scotland, it is suggested that these teacher educators may be ‘unrecognised’ and remain ‘hidden professionals’ because of the identities they construct for themselves, the values and priorities that they or others attach to their roles or because of the institutional structures and cultures in which they work. It is concluded that it will be difficult to recognise and value these ‘hidden teacher educators’ and the distinctive contribution they can make to teachers' career-long professional learning without further clarification by them and others of the roles and responsibilities they hold.     

Children’s lived experiences of ‘ability’ in the Key Stage One classroom: life on the ‘tricky table’

ABSTRACT

Within the wealth of research on ‘ability’ in education, there is a missing perspective: the perspective of the child. Whilst ‘ability’ informed practices such as ‘ability’ grouping are commonplace in the UK, how these are experienced by the young child has previously received only limited attention in research. Using case study evidence, this article demonstrates that children’s lived experiences of ‘ability’ are highly individual and shaped by a broader range of social, structural and pedagogic aspects of classroom life than previously thought. Implications are that a wide range of teaching choices can potentially affect a child’s experience of ‘ability’ and that the impact of these are particularly profound for some children, shaping their perceptions of themselves and others. Children’s perspectives therefore offer a challenge to the hegemonic discourse of ‘ability’ in education and the classroom practices upon which it is based.     

Representing Shakespeare: critical theory and classroom practice

Discussion about the place of Shakespeare in education has been given new impetus by two recent developments ‐‐ one, the unique place given him in the National Curriculum, and the other, the rise of critical ‘theory’. The question ‘why Shakespeare?’ is not one which can be avoided these days, but equally it cannot be separated from the question of what is meant by ‘Shakespeare’ in the context of the school. Educational, as well as literary and cultural theories, are involved. Publishers have responded to the National Curriculum require‐ ment with a spate of new or re‐issued editions and resource books. This article reviews the range of approaches to be found in them and so goes some way not only to clarify the questions raised specifically by the use of Shakespeare in schools, but by extension about the value and purpose of teaching literary texts. I have taught Shakespeare in schools, further education, and higher education institutions and to adult groups and am at present responsible for courses on Shakespeare for students preparing to teach in the primary school sector.     

The emerging professional: an investigation into teacher education students’ developing conceptions of the relationship between theory and classroom practice before,during and after a postgraduate teaching programme

This article brings together two studies which contribute to the examination of the nature of professionalism in education by focusing on the perspectives of two under-researched groups namely ‘teaching assistants’ and teacher educators working ‘either side’ of the school teacher. The projects were conducted in, and framed by, the UK policy context of public sector modernization and cuts, and raise issues of relevance to international debates on notions of professionalism in education in a context of neo-liberal policy and austerity. The studies drew upon different approaches including autoethnography, life history and discourse analysis. The authors examine the formation and representation of professional identity in education through the discourses of ‘professionalism’ of teaching assistants and teacher educators. Professionalism is articulated through three themes in the accounts; ‘non-standard’ professional transformations, role ambiguity, and the role of classroom experience and higher education in the development of professional identities. Through these themes the perspectives of teaching assistants and teacher educators locate the notion of ‘teacher professionalism’ within a broader concept of professionalism in education providing alternatives to the discourse of imposed policy, and the authors reflect upon the ways in which these voices contribute to the wider international debate on professionalism in education.     

Competencies and career choice motives: characteristics of high school students interested in teacher education programmes

In contrast to other career choices, the teaching profession seems familiar to those interested in teaching because they have had the chance to observe teachers for years. This phenomenon is known as the apprenticeship of observation and manifests in naïve ideas and expectations of teaching among teacher students. Therefore, characteristics of students interested in becoming teachers are important for early teacher education and counselling. These characteristics include competencies and motives, but nothing is known about their relationship to each other. Following international teaching standards and the expectancy-value framework, this paper analyses associations between both. Three competencies (i.e. planning, communication and cooperation) and seven career choice motives were examined using a paper–pencil survey of 907 high school students. Altogether, 463 students were able to imagine becoming a teacher and were included in the analyses. SEM analyses showed that (1) of all the competencies, communication had the most associations with motives, (2) the motive ‘low difficulty of study’ is positively related to planning, (3) the findings regarding extrinsic motives are ambiguous, and (4) gender differences are marginal. Practical implications for early teacher education and counselling are discussed.     

Notes and news

Abstract

This paper argues that two areas vital to the teaching profession's own development and to the development of its standing in society have been neglected in inservice education and training. The first, an understanding and development of the ‘public’ dimension of teaching, suggests that teachers have duties and concerns which transcend those of professionals in the private sector because the public domain is a necessary focus for the promotion of collective life as opposed to individual interests. The second, an appreciation of the ‘ecological’ context of teaching, locates its practice within wider political and social issues and deepens the teaching profession's understanding of itself The evidence of neglect of these areas is derived from questionnaire data drawn by the authors from primary and secondary schools on their inservice priorities.     

K-8 Teachers’ Overall and Gender-Specific Beliefs About Mathematical Aptitude

Teachers’ beliefs play a significant role in students’ academic attainment and career choices. Despite comparable attainment levels between genders, persistent stereotypes and beliefs that certain disciplines require innate ability and that men and women have different ability levels impede students’ academic career paths. In this study, we examined the prevalence of US mathematics teachers’ explicit general and gender-specific beliefs about mathematical ability and identified which teacher characteristics were associated with these beliefs. An analysis of data from 382 K-8 teachers in the USA indicated that overall, teachers disagreed with the idea that general and gender-specific mathematical ability is innate and agreed with the idea that hard work and dedication are required for success in mathematics. However, our findings indicate that those who believed mathematics requires brilliance also tended to think girls lacked this ability. We also found that teachers who were teaching mathematics to 11- to 14-year-old students seemed to believe that mathematics requires innate ability compared with teachers who were teaching mathematics to 5- to 10-year-old students. In addition, more experienced teachers and teachers who worked with special education students seemed to believe less in the role of hard work in success in mathematics, which could have serious consequences for shaping their students’ beliefs about their academic self-concept and future career-related decisions.