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British Educational Research Association 2009

British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Manchester 2 - 5 September 2009

Examining Early Career Teacher Resilience: Insights from an Australian Study

Johnson, Le Cornu, Down, Sullivan, Peters, Pearce & Hunter

Considerable research has been carried out on early career teachers’ ‘difficult’ experiences as novice professionals. For over three decades, researchers have sought to identify the causes of early career teachers’ problems and to make recommendations to address them. In some cases, graphic metaphors have been used to convey the seriousness of teachers’ situations as they ‘battle’ to survive ‘in the trenches’ (Bezzina, 2006). An overview of Australian and international research reveals several recurring themes:it is frequently claimed that teachers’ pre-service education does not equip them with sufficient  knowledge, skills and dispositions to meet the demands of classroom teaching (Ramsey, 2000; House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education and Vocational Training, 2007; Roehrig & Luft, 2006). This is particularly so in the area of classroom management (Robertson, 2006);
  1. early career teachers confront a serious mismatch between their ‘idealistic motivations’ and the daily realities of classroom teaching (Abbott-Chapman, 2005);
  2. too few early career teachers experience a quality induction program (Algozzine, Gretes, Queen & Cowan-Hathcock, 2007). Most are left to ‘sink or swim’ and learn by ‘trial and error’ in their first year of teaching (Howe, 2006);
  3. there are both personal and contextual conditions that influence the retention of successful early career teachers (Peters & Le Cornu, 2007)
  4. school structures and cultural practices are ‘deskilling teachers and robbing them of the enthusiasm to proceed with their job creatively’ (Kanpol, 2007, p 1);
  5. school leaders are frequently too busy or lack the skills to effectively support early career teachers (Andrews, Gilbert & Martin, 2007);
  6. the consequences of this are high levels of individual stress and burnout (Howard & Johnson, 2004; Goddard & O’Brien, 2004; Noble & Macfarlane, 2007) which lead to unacceptably high levels of early career attrition and teacher shortages (House of Representatives Standing Committee on Education and Vocational Training, 2007).
The frequently proposed ‘solution’ to such teacher shortages is to ‘fix’ the problems that bedevil early career teachers and lead them to leave the profession. However, such a beguiling and simplistic response has not worked in the past and is unlikely to be effective in the future because:
  1. it adopts a deficits perspective by focussing on problematic behaviour rather than enabling behaviour;
  2. it casts early career teachers as lacking agency and competence;
  3. it fails to acknowledge and take account of the dynamic and complex interactions between individuals and their social and geographic contexts that lead to positive outcomes for teachers;
  4. its intervention focus is primarily on manipulating ‘variables’ or ‘factors’ rather than on promoting social interaction and the development of relationships.
What is lacking in the literature currently is an in-depth understanding of the interplay of personal and contextual factors around early career teachers’ experiences. It is imperative, therefore, that further research is conducted which investigates the phenomenon differently and provides new insights. This research reported in this paper does that by focussing on early career teacher resilience. This paper reports the early findings of a longitudinal study which aims to investigate how early career teachers negotiate and deal with challenges to their personal and professional wellbeing during their first years of teaching. The study is being undertaken (in conjunction with 8 industry partners) with 60 early career teachers in metropolitan, rural and remote areas in two Australian states: Western Australia and South Australia. The paper examines:
  1. how a ‘human resilience’ theoretical framework can be used to study the complex lives of early career teachers to identify the strategies and processes they use to meet the demands of their profession.
  2. the range of circumstances (influenced by socio-cultural and systemic school policies and practices, personal dispositions, and life events) that put early career teachers ‘at risk’ of leaving the profession.
  3. what and how personal and contextual factors and processes operate over time to reduce the impact of life stressors on early career teachers.
  4. what policy initiatives and school based strategies best promote early career teacher resilience.

References

Abbott-Chapman, J. (2005). Let's keep our beginning teachers! Principal Matters, (Summer), 2-4.

Algozzine, B., Gretes, J., Queen, A. J., & Cowan-Hathcock, M. (2007). Beginning teachers' perceptions of their induction program experiences. Clearing House, 80(3), 137-143.

Andrews, S. P., Gilbert, L. S., & Martin, E. P. (2007). The first years of teaching: Disparities in perceptions of support. Action in Teacher Education, 28(4), 4.

Bezzina, C. (2006). Views from the trenches: Beginning teachers' perceptions about their professional development. Journal of In-Service Education, 32(4), 411-430.

Goddard, R., & O'Brien, P. (2004). Are beginning teachers with a second degree at a higher risk of early career burnout? Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 29(1), 1-10.

House of Representatives Standing Committee in Education and Vocational Training (2007) Top of the Class: Report on the Inquiry into Teacher Education. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia.

Howard, S., & Johnson, B. (2004) Resilient Teachers: Resisting Stress and Burnout. Social Psychology of Education, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 399-420.

Howe, E. R. (2006). Exemplary teacher induction: An international review. Educational Philosophy & Theory, 38(3), 287-297.

Kanpol, B. (2007). Critical pedagogy for beginning teachers: The movement from despair to hope. Retrieved September 6, 2007, from http://users.monash.edu.au/~dzyngier

Noble, K., & Macfarlane, K. (2007). Romance or reality?: Examining burnout in early childhood teachers. Early Childhood Australia

Peters, J. & Le Cornu, R. (2007a) The Principal's role in supporting Early Career Teachers to be successful. Refereed paper presented at the Australian Teacher Education Conference, Wollongong, 3rd – 6th July and published in the Conference Proceedings CD – ISBN 0 977658512.

Ramsey, G. (2000). Quality matters: Revitalising teaching: Critical times, critical choices. report of the review of teacher education, new south wales. Sydney: NSW Department of Education and Training.

Robertson, M. (2006). Why novice teachers leave. Principal Leadership, 6(8), 33.

Roehrig, G. H., & Luft, J. A. (2006). Does one size fit all? the induction experience of beginning science teachers from different teacher-preparation programs. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 43(9), 963-985.