"Commitment-to-the-Calling" in Teachers' Professional Lives: Career Decision-Making Processes of Teachers With a Calling Orientation

• In Event: 26.079 - Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: 26.079-13 - Lives of Teachers: Some Provocative Issues

Abstract

Recent studies in the area of career decision-making have focused on correlations between the notion of calling and cognitive and developmental variables. Less attention has been granted to examining how meanings attached to work operate as an underlying platform to inform career decision-making. This qualitative study, which aims at characterizing the career decision-making processes of 34 teachers with a calling orientation (CO), attends to this lens. The findings of the study reveal that, while making career decisions, teachers with CO were driven by a commitment towards fulfilling their sense of meaningfulness derived from a desire to make a difference in the lives of others. We refer to this kind of commitment as 'commitment to the calling'.

Author

• Hayuta Yinon, Oranim Academic College of Education