How do educational systems regulate the teaching profession and teachers’ work? A typological approach to institutional foundations and models of regulation

This cross-national study contributes to the comparative literature on institutional variations in the regulation of the teaching profession by developing a theoretical typology articulated around teacher education, labor market regulation, and the division of labor. Drawing on Freidson’s work on professionalism in the field of sociology of professions, our typology highlights four models of regulation – the ‘market’, the ‘rules’, the ‘training’, and the ‘professional skills’ models. We discuss how these models, embedded in a bureaucratic, market-oriented or professional approach, shape the regulation of the teaching profession and teachers’ work in different contexts.     

Special education and subject teachers’ self‐perceived readiness to teach mathematics to low‐performing middle school students

Educational reforms during the last decade have led to a more inclusive environment for students with different needs and have placed demands on teachers’ readiness to instruct diverse students in the general classroom. Previous research has ascertained that student achievement is correlated with teacher quality and teachers’ efficacy beliefs. Today, basic competence in mathematics is more important than ever for managing routine day‐to‐day activities and therefore, identifying and educationally supporting students with low performance in mathematics is necessary. The aim of the study was to investigate the perceived teacher efficacy beliefs of special education and mathematics teachers when teaching mathematics to low‐performing middle school students. Results indicated that special education teachers had higher teacher efficacy beliefs than mathematics teachers. Teacher experience, certification or gender had no effect on teachers’ efficacy beliefs. Furthermore, subject teachers reported high pedagogical knowledge for teaching low‐performing students, and special education teachers reported having moderate mathematical subject knowledge.     

Helping Pre-Service and Beginning Teachers Examine and Reframe Assumptions About Themselves as Teachers and Change Agents: “Who is Going to Listen to You Anyway?”

The focus of this article is how to ensure (beginning) teachers’ needs as practitioners are part of the discursive dialogue in physical education teacher education programs. We consider the relationship between ‘structure’ and ‘agency,’ teachers as ‘change agents’ and refer to ‘workplace learning’ as we examine the extent to which the social structure of the school and the teaching profession, and?/?or the capacity of the individual to act independently, ultimately determines a teacher's behaviour in reaction to teaching expectations. We are interested as physical education teacher education faculty in how we (1) strive to help pre-service teachers examine and reframe assumptions about themselves as teachers and change agents, and (2) examine taken-for-granted school practices and processes. We share ways that physical education teacher education programs could encourage pre-service teachers agency and the relationship between initial teacher education and induction.     

A variety of roles for a new type of teacherEducational technology and the teaching profession

This article focuses on the implications of the integration of computer technology into education for teachers, the teaching profession and the educational labor market. A Delphi study was done, consisting of interviews with experts in the field of educational technology and a round-table discussion of the results of the interviews. This resulted in two scenarios about the future of computer technology in education and its impact on teaching. In the first scenario educational technology primarily supports individualization of learning processes, in the second scenario the emphasis is on authentic learning in a community of learners, supported by technology. The article discusses these scenarios and their implications for the role of the teacher, the teaching profession and the educational labor market.     

Can transformational leadership influence on teachers’ commitment towards organization,teaching profession,and students learning? A quantitative analysis

This study investigates the impact of transformational leadership as idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration on teachers’ commitment towards organization, teaching profession, and students’ learning. A quantitative survey method was applied, and four broadly hypothesized relationships were tested with a sample of 1,014 trained non-graduate and graduate teachers serving in twenty-seven secondary schools in Sarawak, Malaysia. The results indicate a moderate level of teachers’ commitment and a low level of transformational leadership qualities among the respondents. This study found that inspirational motivation, individualized consideration, and intellectual stimulation were the factors contributing towards teachers’ commitment to teaching profession, and there was no dominant factor influencing commitment to students’ learning. Moreover, it was discovered that inspirational motivation was a factor to teachers’ efficacy and teaching experience. Besides, teachers’ efficacy and teaching experience were predictors to teachers’ commitment to organization, teaching profession, and students’ learning, respectively. These findings revealed that there was a significant relationship between transformational leadership and teachers’ commitment to organization and teaching profession, but not students’ learning. The results of this study indicate the necessity for leadership development of school leaders so that they could systematically acquire and internalize the effective transformational leadership qualities that are crucial in changing teachers’ attitude and improving their commitment towards their profession.     

Career plans and work perceptions of preservice teachers

This article examines the reasons for entry, work perceptions, and the future career plans of 272 preservice teachers who entered a highly selective graduate teacher education program in 1987 and 1988. The profile of their job expectations was compared with that of a sample of experienced teachers. The study concludes that these talented students are entering the profession mainly for altruistic reasons and have fairly realistic views of working conditions; however, many plan to remain only if they derive the expected satisfaction from working which children. The findings are compared to labor market forecasting theories which could direct policy makers in their efforts to attract and retain high ability individuals to the teaching profession.     

新建本科师范院校师德师风建设的途径与措施探析——以湖南第一师范学院为例

湖南第一师范学院是一所以培养小学师资为主的新建本科院校。近年来,学校通过大力弘扬教育传统、强化教育管理、加强养成教育,着力构建师德师风建设的体制机制,不断提升教师的职业道德水平,倾力培养学生爱岗敬业的职业精神,努力熔铸高尚的师德师风,走出了一条成效显著的师德师风建设之路。     

教师的情绪劳动及其优化

随着社会生产方式的变革,大工业的生产方式逐渐让位于服务行业,情绪劳动逐渐成为继体力劳动与脑力劳动的第三种劳动。教师作为高情绪劳动者,教师的情绪劳动有利于构建积极的教学效能、营造动态的工作环境以及变革压迫性的情绪规则。辩证审视教师情绪劳动的价值与问题,对促进教师专业发展有积极作用,当前教师情绪劳动存在教育工作环境复杂导致高强度情绪消耗、学校组织关怀缺失造成情绪资源难以补偿、教师情绪素养不足影响教师情绪调控等问题。基于此,提出教师情绪劳动的优化策略,即"整合教育环境,建立科学减负体系""关注教师情绪,优化组织补偿机制""提高情绪能力,促进教师专业发展"。     

Analysing the socio-psychological construction of identity among pre-service teachers

A teacher’s representation of self is crucial in how they construct their identity. In this article, it is argued that pre-service teachers’ identities are intricately linked to their perceptions of the teaching profession. This paper explores the social construction of identity among pre-service teachers and the implications for professional identity. It focuses on pre-service teachers in Kenya. The findings presented here are primarily based on semi-structured interviews distributed among students enrolled in a Kenyan university. They highlight pre-service teachers’ difficulty in overcoming the negative perceptions of the profession and building positive identities of self as teacher. They also underscore the need for training programmes that take perceptions and representations of the teaching profession into account when formulating training curricula.     

Teaching: A Job or a Profession? The Perceptions of Educators

Researchers designed a study to investigate educators’ perceptions about whether teaching is a job or a profession. A survey was developed to investigate factors such as individual definitions of a job and a profession, years of experience teaching, grade level or category of education, and individual perceptions of a profession. The respondents were 401 upper-level undergraduate preservice teachers and graduate students who were professional educators. Data collected showed many aspects of individuals’ perceptions of teaching including control of teaching and working situations, ethics, and personal perceptions of being a professional. Based on the findings from the study, researchers concluded that educators believe teaching is a profession.     

Teaching Styles among Shanghai Teachers in Primary and Secondary Schools

This study had two aims. The first was to validate further Sternberg’s theory of mental self‐government in a Chinese cultural setting. The second was to investigate the relationship between teaching styles and teachers’ characteristics. Two hundred and three (64 males, 139 females) primary and secondary school teachers from Shanghai, mainland China, participated in the study. Research participants responded to the Chinese version of the Thinking Styles in Teaching Inventory (TSTI), based on Sternberg’s theory of mental self‐government. They also provided a range of demographic information including gender, age, educational level, number of years of teaching experience, subject area taught, and grade taught. The results showed that the TSTI is basically a reliable and valid inventory for assessing the teaching styles of primary and secondary school teachers in Shanghai. The results also found that some teaching styles differed statistically in relation to teachers’ particular personal variables, and partially supported the viewpoint that thinking styles are socialised. The general implications of these findings for teaching in primary and secondary schools are discussed.     

Teaching Experience and Educational Psychologists' Credibility with Teachers: An empirical investigation

The extent to which educational psychologists' credibility with teachers relies on their own teaching experience is an issue that has been hotly debated in the profession for more than 30 years. It is widely perceived as a key reason for retaining qualified teaching experience as a requirement for training as an educational psychologist (EP). The studies reported in this paper investigate whether teachers know that educational psychologists have been teachers (a logical pre-requisite to affording them high credibility on this basis). The studies also examine the regard in which EPs are held by teachers who know, and teachers who do not know, that EPs have been teachers. Results indicate that teaching experience cannot be regarded as necessary to EPs' credibility with teachers. However, a positive relationship between teaching experience and credibility with teachers, among primary school teachers, raises questions about ways of broadening EPs' pre-course experience.     

‘I see what I see from the theory I have read.’ Student teachers learning through theory in practice

This article presents and discusses experiences from a research and development project where Norwegian student teachers were encouraged to bridge theory and practice by following a pupil’s learning processes over time, and to write papers based on empirical data and relevant subject theory. The evaluations of the project received high ratings from the student teachers, and an inductive analysis of the answers to open-ended questions revealed three key aspects behind its success: commuting between field practice and coursework, the authenticity of the tasks and future relevance for the teacher profession. These aspects are interpreted building upon Dewey’s concept educative experience. The findings are discussed in the light of the importance of understanding pupils’ knowledge, and the role of writing in inquiry-based learning processes. The project is also placed within an international discussion on the relationship between field practice and theoretical coursework as arenas for learning in teacher education.     

Comments from the Editors

Second‐career individuals are entering the teaching profession in greater numbers. These older, mature individuals bring diffent experiences to teaching than do younger, traditional preservice and beginning teachers. Lyle, a second‐career teacher, began his first year of teaching in a junior high school, a setting that did not allow him to teach in ways that he believed he should. This paper presents a record of Lyle's struggles as he negotiates the role of teaching and his relationships with students. The conclusions examine some factors that mitigated against Lyles’ smooth transition into the teaching profession and suggest that second‐career teachers such as Lyle may be disadvantaged by traditional teacher education programs, the pressures under which they accept teaching positions, and their sometimes distant perspective of teachers, teacher's work, and students.     

The dilemma of dealing with persistent teaching traditions: findings of a video study

Nowadays, there is a consensus that good teaching and learning needs instructional variation and personalised forms of learning. In teacher education, these concepts have been implemented for years, and prospective teachers are taught accordingly; it is thus assumed that the teaching of novice teachers is in accordance with these new teaching concepts. In the research project ‘ALPHA’, the teaching of novice teachers at the beginning and at the end of their first year in the profession and the teaching of experienced teachers with five or more years of teaching experience was videotaped, so that longitudinal and cross-sectional comparisons were possible. The lessons were analysed by applying a coding system on the instruction and by employing a rater inventory in order to understand the structure and quality of the lessons. Overall, the results indicate high levels of whole class teaching with a rather high level of traditional classroom instruction both for the novice and the experienced teachers. However, the proportions vary depending on the location of teacher education. The results provide evidence that the new teaching concepts learned on the teacher education programme are not necessarily implemented in the classroom and provide possible reasons why this might be the case.     

Pre‐service primary education teachers’ changing attitudes towards teaching: a longitudinal study

This study investigated the longitudinal changes in the attitudes of pre‐service primary education teachers towards the teaching profession as they progressed through training. The results indicate that there is a significant difference in pre‐service teachers’ attitudes towards the profession between their freshman and senior years. Moreover, the findings obtained through interview data have shown that both positive and negative changes occur in pre‐service teachers’ attitudes towards teaching throughout their education, and these changes are observed to be related to teaching practice, cooperating teachers, teacher education institutions and teacher educators.     

Why do long‐serving teachers stay in the teaching profession? Analysing the motivations of teachers with 10 or more years’ experience in England

This paper examines the reasons why long‐serving teachers remain in the teaching profession. Interest in teacher retention has grown in recent years, both in the UK and internationally, due to concerns over teacher shortage. However, most research on retention has focused on why teachers leave; this paper aims to fill the gap in our understanding of the positive reasons why long‐serving teachers stay in the profession, and how these reasons change over time. We define ‘long‐serving teachers’ as teachers who have taught for 10 years and more. We draw on a subset of data from an existing, broader study (Menzies et al., 2015 ) on why teachers enter and stay in the profession. In this paper, we draw on questionnaire findings from over 900 teachers with 0 to over 30 years’ teaching experience, and interviews with 14 long‐serving teachers, to understand why long‐serving teachers enter and, more importantly for our purposes, stay in teaching. We find that teachers’ motivational patterns are highly complex and influenced by school‐level and policy contexts. Nonetheless, two prominent retention factors are identified: teachers’ perceived professional mastery and altruistic reasons. Perceived professional mastery is particularly important due to its mutually reinforcing analytic relationships with other reasons. We find that teachers’ identification with intrinsic, altruistic and perceived professional mastery reasons become stronger with years of experience, but in some cases, paradoxically, so does their identification with extrinsic reasons. From our evidence, we suggest policy implications for enhancing the retention of long‐serving teachers.     

教育实习对学前教育本科生职业选择的影响

本研究采用质性研究方法,通过目的性抽样,聚焦11位学前教育本科生的教育实习经历。研究发现:教育实习使学前教育本科生对幼师职业产生了坚守或逃离的两种选择。从认知层面看,学前教育本科生在教育实习前后对幼师职业的理解和对幼师职业自我胜任感的认识产生了变化;从情感层面看,教育实习中的“重要他人”帮助学前教育本科实习生加深了对幼师的职业情感。整体上来说,一方面实习生在教育实习中遭遇了“上课”和“带班”的双重挑战,另一方面实习生又在“指导教师”的专业指导下及“儿童群体”的情感感召下,增强了对幼师职业的认同和热爱,进而促进了对幼师的职业承诺。     

Perception of teacher education and professional identity among novice teachers

This study examines student teachers’ perceptions of teacher education and its contribution to their professional life, when they become novice teachers during their internship period. The sample comprised 97 student teachers in their fourth year of studies for a BEd degree. Data were collected through questionnaires which included both a structured and an open‐ended part, with regard to five aspects of the teaching profession and teacher education: motivation for teaching, conceptions of teaching–learning, roles of teachers, components of teacher education, and agents of training. Prominent among the findings regarding the motivational aspects of teaching, is a perception of the profession as granting intrinsic rewards. Teaching is perceived as according self‐realisation, providing a sense of purpose and mission, and enabling lifelong development. The component perceived as most important to the teacher’s role is delivering universal values. Findings regarding perception of learning–teaching processes reveal a preference for a constructivist approach.     

The passion of teaching: learning from an older generation of teachers

This article reports on a qualitative small-scale case study that investigated what pre-service teachers learned from a former generation of teachers about the context and nature of teaching and teacher education during the 1950s and 1960s. Data comprised semi-structured interviews and a grounded theoretical approach was used to analyse the data. A process of coding and re-coding of the data resulted in the identification of emergent patterns and broad overarching themes and subthemes. Findings suggest that the pre-service teachers drew inspiration from the older teachers’ emotional connection to the profession, and their own passion for teaching developed or intensified as they came to understand teaching as a rewarding lifelong career. It is suggested that mentor relationships between pre-service teachers and those from an older generation have the potential to support novice teachers in developing a passion for teaching and, ultimately, resilience and longevity in the profession. Recommendations are made for the inclusion in teacher education of opportunities for intergenerational learning through such relationships.