"Why Would I Want to Be a Teacher?" Perceived, Lived, and Conceived Spaces of Schools

• In Event: 69.041 - Recruiting and Retaining Teachers From and for Underserved Schools

Abstract

Teacher shortages are often treated as technical problems that can be solved by providing teachers with more practical preparation. This paper proposes a reconceptualization of teacher shortages problem. By applying Lefebvre’s (1991) theory of space to the analysis of ethnographic data collected in the Russian Federation between 2011 and 2014, this paper highlights how teachers’ plight in schools and in the society at large shapes pre-service teachers’ career aspirations. It captures how narratives of low pay, low status, stress-related burnout, and bureaucratic control over teaching that pre-service teachers see in schools, coupled with negative representations of teachers’ work they see in the media, make teaching an undesirable profession and detract them from pursuing teaching as a career.

Author

• Elena Aydarova, Arizona State University