Moving Beyond Blame: Sociocultural and Critical Approaches to Early-Career Teacher Resilience

• In Event: Roundtable Session 22
  In Roundtable Session: Teachers’ Identities and Perspectives on Teaching

Abstract

This paper investigates the stories of sixty Australian Early Career Teachers (ECTs) as they grapple with some of the most persistent and protracted personal and professional struggles facing teachers today. At times this has been an exhilarating experience as we documented the wonder, joy and excitement of ECTs working with young children for the first time. All too often, however, we heard demoralising stories about their feelings of frustration, disillusionment and even outrage as they struggled with the complexity and intensity of life in schools. Making sense of these stories in ways that can assist education systems, schools, faculties of teacher education and early career teachers to develop more powerful forms of critical teacher resilience is the focus of this presentation.

Authors

• Barry Down, Murdoch University

• Anna M. Sullivan, University of South Australia

• Bruce Raymond Johnson, University of South Australia