New professionalism in austere times: the employment experiences of early career teachers in Scotland

International concern to raise educational standards and improve teacher quality has directed attention to the need to sustain career-long professional learning. Teacher induction and early professional learning (during years 2–6) have been associated with patterns of attrition and improved pupil outcomes. As the economic crisis impacts on public sector employment, the rhetoric of professionalism stands in contrast to the employment experiences of many recently qualified teachers. This article draws on interviews with 20 early career teachers in Scotland who achieved full registration from 2006. Work histories drawn from this small-scale study challenge the implicit assumptions of staged models of teacher development and draw attention to the increasing fragmentation and casualisation of experience in the teacher labour market.     

Supporting and inhibiting the well‐being of early career secondary school teachers: Extending self‐determination theory

This paper reports an original examination of the well‐being of early career secondary school teachers in England, which extends the evidence bases relating to early career teachers’ working lives, teacher well‐being, self‐determination theory and performativity, respectively. Drawing on a secondary analysis of qualitative data generated for four separate empirical studies between 2005 and 2013, in a context in which teachers’ work was subject to unparalleled external regulation, the authors examine the extent to which the well‐being of early career teachers can be explained by self‐determination theory, which posits that well‐being is enhanced when innate psychological needs for competence, relatedness and autonomy are satisfied. The findings suggest that satisfaction of these three basic psychological needs is a necessary but not sufficient condition for optimising the well‐being of early career teachers, which is dependent upon the interaction of a wider range of individual, relational and micro‐, meso‐ and macro‐environmental factors. Amongst the recommendations for policy and practice, policymakers and school leaders are urged to uphold their duty of care to newly and recently qualified teachers by doing their utmost to create conditions for the optimisation of such teachers' well‐being. Several specific means of bringing this about are proposed, together with a checklist for those concerned to support the well‐being of early career teachers.     

Early career teacher peer support through private groups in social media

This paper describes the support that Australian early career teachers are accessing through private groups within social media. It presents findings from 22 interviews with teachers who indicated that Facebook was a source of support. Participants describe using private online groups for: (a) support during casual employment; (b) accessing collegial support from pre-existing connections, in particular those formed during initial teacher education; and (c) support to deal with challenging situations such as a hostile work environment. The paper suggests that further research needs to be conducted into how private media groups might support the needs of early career teachers.     

Understanding teachers’ motivation for and commitment to teaching: profiles of Chinese early career,early childhood teachers

ABSTRACT

To better understand the reasons underlying attrition and the teacher shortage, and to develop ways to attract and retain high-quality teachers in early childhood education, it is necessary to explore teacher motivation and commitment to teaching. Although previous research has investigated various aspects of teacher motivation and commitment to teaching, little attention has been paid to this in the context of early childhood teachers, especially early career teachers. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with 12 early career, early childhood teachers in mainland China, this study aims to examine early career early childhood teachers’ motivation to teach and commitment to teaching in the Chinese context. Four distinct types of early career, early childhood educators were identified: committed passionate, committed compromiser, undecided, and uncommitted. Each of these had unique motives for teaching and different levels of commitment to kindergarten teaching in mainland China. The four types of early career early childhood teachers identified in this study demonstrate the diversity and complexity of teaching motivation and commitment to teaching in the field of early childhood education. The findings from this study can provide implications for policy-makers and teacher educators to enhance novice teachers’ motivation and commitment to teaching in the early childhood context.     

An early career academic network: what worked and what didn’t

This article documents the experiences of three early career academics trying to establish a network of early career academics (ECAs) in a middle-ranked university in Australia. The changing context of academia means that ECAs face considerable challenges in understanding and negotiating effective career paths. Some of the issues encountered include insecure employment arrangements; unclear and shifting expectations; heavy workloads and competing demands; and conflicting experiences around the collegiate culture of academia. As research and teaching institutions, universities must ensure the ongoing development of new academics. While there is a growing interest in exploring the issues confronted by new academics, much remains to be done to better understand, and improve, the pathways of academic development. To this end we reflect on our efforts to establish an ECA network that aimed to enhance professional development, facilitate an improved research culture and establish an informal peer support network. We did so through establishing an online presence for sharing information, hosting a series of professional development seminars and hosting a 2.5 day writing retreat. Our experiences suggest that, while efforts to enhance the capacity of ECAs are worthwhile, the very same pressures that our network was attempting to address were simultaneously creating barriers to ECA involvement in the network and its activities.     

Relationships and early career teacher resilience: a role for school principals

Given the current climate of high levels of teacher attrition, it is critically important that we understand what keeps early career teachers in the profession. This paper reports early findings from a project addressing the question: ‘What conditions are conducive to promoting teacher resilience and retention in the first two years of teaching?’ The research aims to identify the internal strengths and external strategies that promote resilience in early career teachers. School leaders and first year teachers from 59 schools across two states in Australia contributed to in-depth, open-ended interviews in which they talked about the experiences of beginning teaching. From this data, narrative portraits were developed and emerging themes documented and analysed. A strong emerging theme is how relationships with principals influence teachers’ feelings of personal and professional well-being, with both negative and positive effects reported. This paper uses portraits of two early career teachers to examine this theme. The findings provide important insights for principals who wish to foster resilience in early career teachers.     

‘If you’re wrong for the place you just don’t survive’: examining the work of early career teachers in context

ABSTRACT

This article presents evidence from across the segregated secondary school system in NSW, Australia, through the close analysis of three cases of teachers’ work in contrasting schooling contexts. Through this comparative approach, the relationship between school context and the work of the early career teacher is foregrounded, troubling views of teaching as reflecting a certain kind of life cycle in which early career teachers in particular are seen to be subject to pressures such as stress and burnout. In contrast, I argue that specificities of context, exacerbated by a market-based policy approach which has driven greater levels of differentiation between schools, have particular consequences for teachers, both in the nature and scale of the challenges with which they are faced. In demonstrating how teachers’ work is affected by context, I also speak back against recent, often ill-defined discourses of ‘classroom readiness’ and ‘teacher quality’, which emphasise the roles of teachers and teacher educators rather the systems within which they work.     

Critically re-conceptualising early career teacher resilience

In this paper, we describe how and why we adopted a socially critical orientation to early career teacher resilience. In re-conceptualising early career teacher resilience, we expose the normative components of resilience by revealing the implicit values, beliefs and assumptions that underpin most traditional conceptions of resilience. We argue against the hyper-individualisation of the concept because it leads to a diminution of the influence of situational and structural forces on early career teachers’ experiences, and shifts primary responsibility for early career teacher well-being onto the individual. We lay the groundwork for a critical perspective on teacher resilience capable of illuminating the ‘problems’ of early career teachers within a broader social, cultural and political context. Our analysis is designed to promote further debate about new ways of seeing early career teacher resilience with the aim of creating and sustaining a spirit of optimism and human agency, as well as a sense of health and well-being among early career teachers.     

Action research: professional development to help support and retain early career teachers

This article analyzes how participation in teacher-led, semester-long, action research projects influences early career teacher (fewer than three years of teaching experience) perceptions of support and learning. All teachers at an urban, newly developed, small high school participated in action research projects as a result of the administrations’ attempts to modify the school’s approach to professional development to better meet the teachers’ needs. Two cycles of action research projects were implemented and teachers provided feedback through an end-of-project evaluation. Data were also collected through participant observation and informal interviews. Results show that teacher-led action research projects as a professional development structure contribute to the development of a supportive professional culture, feelings of context-specific support, and feelings of empowerment and being overwhelmed in an urban school staffed primarily with early career teachers.     

Transition systems and non-standard employment in early career: comparing Japan and Switzerland

Even though Japan and Switzerland are characterised by comparatively low youth unemployment rates, non-standard forms of employment are on the rise, posing a risk to the stable integration of young labour market entrants. Drawing on the French approach of societal analysis, this paper investigates how country-specific school-to-work transition systems stratify the risk of non-standard employment in early career differently in Japan and Switzerland. Our results reveal that in Japan, young entrants who completed university education are least at risk of becoming employed in non-standard work. On the contrary, it is the highly educated university graduates who mainly enter the labour market via non-standard employment in Switzerland, where vocational education promotes smooth transitions into standard employment relationships. Our findings suggest that the transition systems of the two countries differ in the way they revert to non-standard forms of employment. However, while job insecurities may not endanger labour market integration of highly skilled university graduates holding good career prospects in Switzerland, they may go hand in hand with social exclusion processes for the low-educated young entrants lacking bargaining power in the segmented Japanese labour market.     

毕业生就业压力与择业效能感探析——以沧州师范学院为例

目的：了解专科毕业生的就业压力与择业效能感的状况及其关系.方法：采用《毕业生就业压力问卷》和《择业效能感问卷》对沧州师范学院465名2011届专科毕业生进行测试.结果：（1）专科毕业生的就业压力较大;不同性别、来源的专科毕业生的就业压力存在显著差异.（2）专科毕业生的择业效能感较高;不同性别、来源、师范生与非师范生的择业效能感存在显著差异.（3）专科毕业生的择业效能感与就业压力呈显著负相关,择业效能感对就业压力具有显著负向预测作用.结论：可以通过调整专科毕业生的择业效能感来缓解其就业压力.     

Why some graduating teachers choose not to teach: teacher attrition and the discourse-practice gap in becoming a teacher

ABSTRACT

Teacher attrition is a perennial problem in many countries around the globe. With attrition especially pronounced amongst early career teachers, efforts to retain and sustain these teachers have highlighted the importance of effective mentoring and support programs within schools. However, less is known about the perceptions and experiences of graduates of initial teacher education (ITE) programs who choose not to enter the teacher profession, therefore not benefiting from such mentoring and support, and subsequently being lost to the profession, potentially forever. Therefore, this paper reports on a qualitative case study that investigated the reasons why one group of graduates from an ITE program in Hong Kong chose not to teach. Using in-depth interviews and grounded in a theory of teacher identity construction, the results reveal how the participants struggled to construct their preferred professional identities, in particular during a teaching practicum, and the role this played in their decision not to enter the teaching profession. Implications for how teacher educators can better support preservice teachers as they struggle to construct their professional identities are considered and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Beginning teacher attrition: a question of identity making and identity shifting

While there is discrepancy about the actual percentage of early career teachers that leave teaching in their first five years, one consistent discovery in a number of countries is that attrition is high for early career teachers. I became curious about early career teacher attrition as I watched colleagues leave the profession that they thought was a lifelong calling. In order to inquire into this phenomenon, I moved through a three-stage research process. First, I engaged in writing a series of stories about my experiences as a beginning teacher. Using autobiographical narrative inquiry, I then inquired into the stories in order to retell them looking for resonances across the stories. Secondly, I conducted a review of the literature, analyzing the studies to identify how the problem of early career teacher attrition was conceptualized. I identified two dominant problem frames: a problem frame situated within the individual and a problem frame situated in the context. Lastly, I offered a different conceptualization of the phenomenon of early career teacher attrition that draws on my autobiographical narrative inquiry and the literature review. I frame the problem of teacher attrition, not as a personal or a contextual problem frame, but as a problem of teacher identity making and identity shifting.     

A case study of early career secondary teachers’ perceptions of their preparedness for teaching: lessons from Australia and Spain

This paper presents an international comparison of Australian and Spanish secondary teachers’ perceptions about the effectiveness of their pre-service education and their learning as in-service teachers. It aims to identify, firstly, the extent to which beginning teachers believe they are prepared for their careers through their teacher training and, secondly, what teachers have learned as practicing teachers. A qualitative case study was conducted to uncover whether similar issues raised by early career teachers were identified in different contexts. Data were collected through interviews with secondary teachers (N = 11) from Australia and Spain in their third year of full-time teaching. Findings suggest similar positive perceptions towards their practicum experiences, transition to beginning teachers and professional development. However, differences were found in their early career experiences regarding professional learning and their development of identity. Implications of the study are discussed by identifying strategies to improve pre-service education for secondary teachers.     

‘I’m coming back again!’ The resilience process of early career teachers

Early career teachers face a range of challenges in their first years of teaching and how these challenges are managed as career implications. Based on current literature, this paper presents a model of early career teacher resilience where resilience is seen as a process located at the interface of personal and contextual challenges and resources. Through a semi-structured interview the challenges faced by 13 Australian early career teachers and the resources available to manage these challenges are examined. Findings show that beginning teachers experience multiple, varied and ongoing challenges and that personal and contextual resources are both important in sustaining them through the beginning year(s) of their teaching careers. The study emphasises the critical roles played by family and friends and the importance of relationships in the resilience process. Implications for future research and teacher education are discussed.     

职业院校职业生涯教育的问题与策略结构

职业生涯教育不同于职业生涯规划教育,但决不排斥并且积极地容纳职业生涯规划教育。基于模块化课程建设的职业生涯教育,将职业生涯规划教育作为一个必修模块,由专业教师任教。职业生涯教育是一个完善的教育体系,它包括职业生涯规划教育、个性化的职业生涯辅导、旨在提高学生职业能力的模块化课程建设。因此,要在"生物学基础观"的指引下,在课程模块的工作过程导向的教学中,夯实"宽基础",注重为学生长期的具有可变性的职业生涯服务。     

Special Issue Introduction: Career and Life Planning Key Feature Within Comprehensive Guidance Programs

Career and life planning is viewed as a process that starts early in the elementary school through adult life and it should be at the heart of any guidance program. This journal discusses the value and process ideas at each of the school and grade levels. The authors also discuss how parents, employers, and teachers enhance the career planning process by expanding student options, encouragement, motivation, mentoring, and providing career life experiences. Career planning is viewed as a structured and expected series of events and activities a student would go through as a part of their school experience. It forwards the idea that to assure all youth have a plan for life transition and success takes state department of education policy and support, local district expectations, time, and resources, and students who see the value in participating. The counselor is viewed as the key agent in such a program and needs to demonstrate that early, continuous and high quality life planning improves not only academic achievement, but life and employment success.     

美国学前教师职业路径的发展与借鉴

学前教师的职业路径不仅指其成为一名教师前的教育过程,也包含其成为教师后基于职业能力的生涯发展过程。近年来,随着美国社会各界对高质量学前教育的需求,对学前教师的职业能力发展也提出了更高的要求。基于此,美国各州为克服学前教师在职业路径发展过程中遇到的教育财政支持有限、职业发展规划缺乏、教师资格认证不同、学分之间衔接不足等问题,通过提供必要的财政支持、全面的支持服务、统一资格凭证、加强学习衔接等举措,形成了各州独特的实践举措。这可以为中国在进行学前教师职业路径发展中提供借鉴,需加强构建区域及国家级职业路径建设计划、完善"国标省考县聘"的学前教师准入制度、加强学前教师职业培训体系建设、注重现代教育技术在学前教师职业路径建设中的应用。     

Conceptualising institutional support for early,mid, and later career teachers

In this paper we argue that institutions need to support early career teachers to learn to teach in much the same way that students who are new to higher education are supported: through integrated and intentionally designed transition strategies. We take a published student transition typology and adapt it to identify ways of supporting early career teachers. We argue that strategies within each conception of our adapted typology are necessary to support a diverse cohort of higher education teachers, not only those who begin teaching each year, but those who are in their mid and later careers.     

学缘关系对大学教师学术职业发展影响的实证研究——以H大学为个案

本文基于H大学2003-2006年的职称评审数据,采用Logistic回归分析方法,探讨学缘关系对大学教师学术职业发展的影响。研究发现,尽管人力资本仍是学术职业发展最重要的内在逻辑,但学缘关系对大学教师学术职业发展的影响日益显著。学缘关系越丰富的大学教师,取得学术职业发展的可能性越大;不同种类的学缘关系对大学教师学术职业发展的影响程度不同,在控制其他因素的条件下,本科、硕士与博士在同一所学校就读并留校任教的大学教师学术职业发展可能性最大,具有硕士学缘关系的大学教师学术职业发展可能性最小。基于上述结论,本文提出深化教师聘任制度改革、完善职称评审制度与加快学术劳动力市场建设等一系列政策建议。