Rethinking Rural Teacher Shortages: Looking at Retention Rather Than Attraction?

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 11:40 am Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Leadership and Policy in Rural Education: Navigating Challenges and Enhancing Systems (Table 9)

Abstract

Policy and research approaches to the perennial problem of rural school staffing have often focused on attraction of teachers, and on why teachers leave. This often generates a focus on rural teaching, schooling, and community on what they lack. The aim of this paper is to shift the focus from why rural teachers leave to why they stay. Drawing on previous research, it suggests a shift in viewing rural schools and communities as assets rather than problems. Focusing on four domains of teachers’ work and life – classroom, whole school, personal, and community – it reveals teachers’ perspectives on what makes them stay teaching in their rural schools and identifies the factors that enable teacher retention in rural schools.

Author

• Hernan Cuervo, University of Melbourne