Pathways for displaced educators to rejoin the educator workforce: Navigational, professional, and socioemotional support within a virtual community of practice

• In Event: Poster Session 9
  In Poster Session: Pathways for displaced educators to rejoin the educator workforce: Navigational, professional, and socioemotional support within a virtual community of practice

Proposal

Teacher shortages (NCES, 2023; UNESCO, 2024), increased displacement and migration (UNHCR, 2024), and persistent monolingualism among teachers (Williams, 2023) are three intersecting challenges that contribute to continuing inequities in education access, quality, and outcomes for refugee/(im)migrant students worldwide (Jalbout & Bullard, 2022; UNHCR, 2023). Research shows, however, that recruiting and retaining well-prepared teachers who reflect the diversity in their communities can address these challenges (e.g., IES, n.d.; Lindsay et al., 2022; Miller, 2018; Yip & Saito, 2023; UNESCO, 2024). Additionally, the positive impacts of bi/multilingual education are well documented (e.g., King, 2018; Porter et al., 2023; Serafini et al., 2022).

In the U.S., where the featured initiative is situated, more than 3.1 million refugees have been resettled since 1980 (MPI, 2023). More than 26% of the U.S. student population is now of refugee/(im)migrant background or the child of a foreign-born parent (Sugarman, 2023), and nearly 500 languages are spoken in the homes of multilingual families across the U.S. (OELA, 2023a). This increased diversity is not reflected in the U.S. teacher workforce which remains largely white (NCES, 2023; Schaeffer, 2021) and monolingual English speaking with only 13% of K-12 teachers identifying as bilingual or multilingual (Williams, 2023).

The poster will share the rationale, methodology, impact, and learnings from a refugee/(im)migrant-focused Pathways to Teaching Project (PTP) in the U.S. As a project rooted in a decentralized (not national) and highly variable U.S. education system, this presentation will offer insights applicable across many settings. In this specific PTP initiative, forty educators of refugee/(im)migrant backgrounds engaged in a virtual community of practice to explore education career pathways. The project addressed fundamental issues confronting both education systems and newly arriving refugee/(im)migrants who face formidable challenges when attempting to restart careers in a new country.

Aspiring educators of refugee and immigrant backgrounds were supported in (re)joining the U.S. education workforce through a virtual community of practice. Project Fellows participated in a facilitated online course, online workshops, discourse and resource exploration on a virtual community platform, and online coaching sessions with diverse U.S. educators. Fellows developed individualized pathway plans that built on their assets and aspirations, and which included specific action steps related to certification and licensure, interview preparation and resume building, and exploration of jobs in their local contexts. At the end of the eight month project period, 80% of Fellows reported feeling significantly more prepared to make progress toward or reach their career goals in education; 36% of Fellows were continuing in their current education position or seeking advancement and 33% secured new positions or advanced in their current position.

This poster will elaborate on project outcomes and impact, share learnings from the initiative, and outline pivots the project team is making in their continuing pathway initiatives based on PTP evidence and impact. Recommendations for others interested or engaged in teacher reentry projects globally will also be shared.

Authors

• Sarah Bracken, Childhood Education International

• Julie Kasper, University of Arizona / Childhood Education International