Building and Sustaining Social Capital: Understanding First-Year Teachers' Sense of Agency and Retention

• In Event: Situating Gender and Race in Teacher Recruitment and Retention: Implications for Sustaining Agency

Abstract

Objectives/Purpose
Given the challenges beginning teachers experience and increasing rate of attrition, the aim of this research is to better understand how beginning teachers develop and sustain agency in their worklives. In particular,
• How do the first year teachers describe the manifestation and emergence of their agency through the interactions with colleague teachers and school administrators?
• In what ways do colleague teachers and school administrators support or hinder first-year teachers' agency to build and sustain social capital?

Perspective/Theoretical Framework
Teachers' work and lives are fully embedded in the web of relationships (Bryk & Schneider, 2002). While all relational dynamics matter, professional relationships with colleagues and school leaders have been recognized as critical conditions in enabling teachers to develop their competencies and capacities to manage various challenges and demands effectively (e.g., Fullan, 2003; Gu, 2014). As relationships are mutual, individual teachers, as active agents, can make choices and carry forth actions to cultivate the relationships. Teacher agency, which is defined as "intentional regulation of learning and context-dependent on-task action strategies steering professional development" (Soini, Pietarinen, Toom & Pyhältö, 2015, p. 643), explains how teachers feel empowered to initiate and complete necessary tasks.

In this study, we adopt Ruohotie-Lyhty and Moate’s (2016) three agency forms to unpack first-year teachers’ lives and social capital: i) Expansive (taking a direction, becoming confident, taking responsibilities, and developing pedagogical convictions), ii) Reductive (losing confidence, withdrawing, and creating boundaries), and iii) Attentive (monitoring the environment, anticipating, and pondering).

Methodology and Data Sources
Using qualitative inquiry, 16 first-year teachers who teach in a Midwestern State in the U. S. participated in the semi-structured, individual interviews that lasted approximately 1 hour. The interviews were analyzed inductively by reducing the text to core themes that reflect the overall context (LeCompte & Preissle, 1993).

Results
Four patterns of agency were identified in relation to their interactions with colleagues and school administrators. (1) Emergence of expansive agency from attentive or reductive agency as the school year progressed (n=4), (2) Strengthening of expansive agency (n=4). They began the school year with an expansive form of agency and had continued to grow as professionals while gaining confidence, understanding their limitations, seeking help, using active and proactive use of strategies to overcome challenges, and creating realistic goals in their classrooms, (3) Declining to reductive agency despite their initial enthusiasm, effort, and confidence (n=6), and (4) Regressing to reductive agency (n=2). As the least healthy pattern, they began their teaching with a reductive form of agency, which only worsened over time. Findings also show how relational dynamics with colleagues and administrators impact their agency patterns.

Significance
This study showed the importance of keeping the balance between understanding first-year teachers as novices and thus providing hands-on feedback, scaffolding, and support while also acknowledging and valuing their autonomy and agency by treating them as equals, asking and listening to their opinions, and respecting ideas as professionals. This enables first-year teachers to develop empowering relationships and social capital, which contribute to their teaching effectiveness, well-being, and career longevity.

Authors

• Ji Y. Hong, University of Oklahoma

• Kristyna Looney, The University of Oklahoma