Mapping the Origins of the Emotional Turning Points in Early-Career Teachers' Lives

• In Event: 30.061 - Attracting and Keeping the Best Teachers

Abstract

Objectives
This paper reports on a socially-critical study that examined early career teachers’ trajectories and resilience. The purpose of the study was to investigate the peaks and troughs experienced by early career teachers to better understand how they transition to the profession.

Perspective
Research continually shows that early career teachers struggle as they make the transition to the profession, finding their work ‘overwhelming’ (e.g. Lortie 2002). Policy initiatives have been introduced in an attempt to ‘fix’ the problem and alleviate the struggles (Sullivan & Morrison, 2014). However, such initiatives have not always been successful because they tend to adopt a deficit view of teachers and ignore the interwoven influences of the personal, contextual and systemic issues that affect their work.

Methods and data sources
A data set was created from a larger study drawing on the traditions of narrative enquiry and critical ethnography which investigated early career teacher resilience (Johnson, et al. 2016). For the study reported here, data included line drawings and transcripts of semi-structured interviews collected from 42 elementary and high school early career teachers. The participants were asked to prepare and discuss a line drawing to highlight the trajectory and critical points of their careers. Adopted from Sumison (2004) this elicitation tool required teachers to highlight issues of resilience. Data were analysed to make sense of the teachers’ critical turning points (Tripp 1998).

Results and substantiated conclusions
This paper argues that systemic policies related to recruitment and retention, and the intense and isolated nature of early career teacher’ work contributes to not only their emotional despair but also to their elation. It argues that the central determinants of early career wellbeing focus on the specific strengths and weaknesses of individual graduate teachers. By individualising these explanations, we tend to lose sight of bigger issues that impact on their wellbeing. I draw on Mills’ work (1970) who argues that to understand the individual requires us to understand the institution. Therefore, there is some merit in mapping the ‘trajectories of despair and elation’ in early career teachers’ lives, we should avoid seeing these emotional highs and lows in individualistic ways. As Mills reminds us, we need to see the link between what may be happening in the lives of individual teachers, and the big events, movements and actions that are happening in the broader society.

Scholarly significance
Finally, by offering a greater understanding of early career teachers’ experiences, we contribute to the call to rethink the nature of early career teachers’ work to provide a better transition to the profession.

References
Johnson, B., Down, B., Le Cornu, R., Peters, J., Sullivan, A., Pearce, J., & Hunter, J. (2016). Promoting early career teacher resilience: A socio-cultural and critical guide to action. London: Routledge.

Lortie, D. (2002). School-teacher: A sociological study. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Mills, C. W. (1970). The sociological imagination. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Sumison, J. (2004). Early childhood teachers’ constructions of their resilience and thriving: A continuing investigation. International Journal of Early Years Education, 12(3), 275-290.

Author

• Anna M. Sullivan, University of South Australia