Is It a Waste of Talent for PhDs to Become School Teachers? Investigating the Public Debates Surrounding Doctoral Teachers

• In Event: Teacher education and the teaching profession

Proposal

Cultivating top-notch teachers is an important prerequisite to supporting the high-quality development of education, and teacher qualification is regarded as one of the core criteria for teacher quality and development potential. To this end, under the guidance and promotion of policies, more and more highly educated talents, especially doctors, are choosing to enter the field of compulsory education and become school teachers. However, this new trend has not been unanimously supported by the public, but has triggered a series of heated public debates and even questions. Against this background, this study aims to systematically dismantle and sort out the relevant public discussions in order to clarify what the core public disputes are and how these controversies arise, thus providing a unique theoretical value for rethinking the teaching profession. Three different media sources were selected for this study, namely schools, officials, and the public. 21 official news and 24 school news were obtained through online searches using the keyword 'doctors in primary and secondary schools,' while 195 related news were found on Bajiahao (Public media), and 1,093 responses were obtained on Zhihu (Public media) under the question 'What do you think about Ph.D. students choosing to become school teachers? The data collected spanned from 2012 to 2021, with a total word count of over 500,000 words. Through discourse analysis and content analysis, this study has identified two distinct logical lines: the debate on the symbolic capital and abilities held by doctors. In the debate on symbolic capital, those who hold the view of 'overqualified but underutilized' believe that primary and secondary schools have difficulty matching the high symbolic capital of doctors, resulting in a waste of talent, while those who hold the opposite view argue that the high symbolic capital held by doctors is not wasted, but rather is transformed into advantages in terms of merit pay and benefits, career advancement, etc. that ordinary teachers cannot enjoy. In the debate on abilities, the public mainly focuses on the knowledge and abilities possessed by doctors and divides into two opposing views: those who support the view that 'doctors' abilities can meet the requirements' believe that the scientific research capabilities, subject knowledge and comprehensive literacy possessed by doctors can effectively support their teaching work and have a positive impact on student learning. Those who disagree caution about the lack of teaching skills and aspirations that doctors may have, as well as the tendency to focus only on research and neglect teaching. Beyond this, the test-taking skills possessed by doctors were recognized by both sides, but opinions differed on their use and the possible subsequent impact. To a large extent, the recurrence of the 'doctoral entry into primary and secondary schools' debate has been influenced by the history of the teaching profession (teachers' social status, requirements for diplomas and competencies, salaries, etc.) and the current socio-cultural aspects of chase and competition for diplomas. That is, the public's stereotypical perceptions of teachers and their desire for the social mobility and stratification that a diploma can provide make it difficult for them to understand the career decisions of these doctoral teachers. In addition to this, there are concerns about equitable access to educational resources, i.e., who gets access to these doctoral teachers when they are identified as a quality educational resource that is not commonly available? Currently, these public debates put greater pressure on schools and doctoral teachers. The increase in the number of doctors entering the field of compulsory education is accompanied by a challenge to the existing teacher education system and schools, and indeed to the teaching profession. It is also a reminder to reflect on whether the existing standards of the teaching profession are really the only best ones. For these doctoral teachers, their cutting-edge vision and comprehensive literacy may be evidence of the new needs arising from the current process of education reform.

Authors

• Yansi Hou

• shuangye Chen, East China Normal University