Too Old to Learn? Social Categories Applied to Veteran Teachers

• In Event: Interrogating, Emerging, and Developing: Teacher Identities in Flux

Abstract

How do we think about, talk about and interact with veteran teachers? This study seeks to problematize a prevalent common sense that veteran teachers are resistant to learning and educational improvement. We explore the socio-cultural categories used to describe veteran teachers in research, policy and practice. Building on five years of ethnographic fieldwork, including participation-observation, informal and formal interviews and policy documents, we identified, classified and closely analyzed references to veteran teachers. Generally, veteran teachers are treated as resistant to learning and educational change. However, individual veteran teachers and their colleagues did enact alternative identities and positions. Amongst other issues, our study points to the affordances and constraints of the social categories applied to veterans for all teachers’ learning.

Authors

• Livat Eshchar-Netz, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

• Adam Lefstein, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

• Dana Vedder-Weiss, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev