Equity in Access to Teacher Professionalism

• In Event: Understanding How to Improve Teacher Quality and Equity Through International Comparative Research

Abstract

Well documented global trends identify unequal distributions of high-quality teachers within countries. This includes well documented distributions by income and minority status in the U.S. (Imazeki & Goe, 2009; Jacob, Vidyarthi & Carroll, 2012; Peske & Haycock, 2006) and OECD countries (OECD, 2005), Roma populations in Eastern Europe (Kertesi & Kezdi, 2011; Sorbe, 2014), and geographic differences in much of the global south (Mulkeen, 2006). Driving this unequal distribution may be disparities in practices that support teacher professional development. Expanding the work of Johnson and colleagues (2004), who defines a teacher support gap as the differences in teacher support activities between high and low needs schools, this research examines within country teacher professionalism support gaps using results from the 2013 TALIS by comparing differences in teacher support between countries working in various high needs contexts and asks two basic questions. First, how does the within country mean score for each teacher professionalism domain vary by the relative high needs environment teachers work in? Second, does the association between teacher professionalism domain and teacher satisfaction and self-efficacy vary by the relative high needs environment teachers work in?

Results suggest that teacher professionalism gaps are most apparent when comparing teachers in high and low economically disadvantaged schools. Regardless of high needs student group (economically disadvantaged, special needs, or second language), the greatest amount of within country diversity in teacher support is found in the autonomy domain. Additional findings suggest that teacher professionalism support gaps are not associated with country mean PISA score. This is not surprising as support gaps are a measure of within country variance in support for teachers. More accurate comparisons mapping teacher professionalism support gaps to country mean PISA standard deviation reveal a marginal correlation with increases in equity (i.e. more support for teachers in high needs schools) associated with decreases in the country mean PISA standard deviation. This trend is most apparent when the mean teacher professionalism support gap is replaced with the autonomy support gap, the gap most prominent in most countries.

How teachers are supported can influence their satisfaction with their present employment. The results here indicate that teacher professionalism practices are almost always positively associated with increased teacher satisfaction, especially when the support comes in the form of increase professional knowledge or increased peer standards. Important for equity concerns, this positive association is largely amplified in high needs schools, suggesting that one of the best investments schools can make in increasing teacher satisfaction are providing practices that support teacher professionalism.

Author

• William C Smith, RESULTS Educational Fund