Untold Stories: Pushing Teachers Out by Leaving Life Experience at the Classroom Door

• In Event: 18.031 - Leavers, Pushed-Outs, and Those Who Stay: Teacher Responses to Professional Pressures

Abstract

This study reports on one stage of a research project about the untold stories of teachers who come from backgrounds of adversity and their experiences in the profession. In this paper, I use narrative inquiry and aspects of autoethnography to make sense of personal experiences, memories and life stories of others in several Australian schools. These stories are part of a doctoral narrative study of teachers who identify with ‘adversity histories’ – those who rate high on the American survey study of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE). I report on the way socialisation contributes to the differential valuing of storying adversity experiences within both teacher education and schools and explore how stories of adversity become invisible contributors to teacher professional identity.

Author

• Stevie Lebhers, La Trobe University