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Newly qualified teachers as a resource in school in a micropolitical perspective
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Extensive reforms have been made to initial teacher education (ITE) to improve “teacher quality” without any evidence to support the claim that beginning teachers are less competent than experienced teachers. This study adds to the evidence base by investigating associations between teachers’ years of experience and teaching quality. Results show no evidence of lower teaching quality for beginning teachers (0–3 years’ experience), but some evidence of a decline in teaching quality for teachers with 4–5 years experience. Findings suggest that the quality of teaching could be higher overall, and that targeted support and evidence-informed professional learning would benefit all teachers.
Teacher leadership is often connected to experienced teachers as it is assumed that a certain level of knowledge and experience is needed. Informal teacher leadership, however, can also be expected from beginning teachers. The aim of this study is to study beginning teachers’ opportunities for enacting leadership. Twelve pairs, consisting of one school management staff member (e.g. principal, administrators, head of departments) and one beginning teacher, were interviewed. For the analyses, three codes describing levels of leadership (witness, participation, ownership) were used to label the situations reported by the novices and staff members in which they experienced and observed leadership. The findings of this study show that it is possible for beginning teachers to enact leadership roles. They do, however, need to develop knowledge and skills for this purpose. To optimise these leadership competencies, teacher education programmes could consider including this more explicitly in their curriculum.
The aim of the present study was to use the narratives of beginning teachers to investigate the emotionally challenging situations they face, with a focus on how their perspectives and definitions of such situations guided their actions and made coping possible. A short term longitudinal qualitative interview study was adopted. Twenty participants were interviewed at the outset of their last year of teacher education and then followed up with an interview at their first year of teaching. In between self-reports were written in addition to the interviews. The material was analysed using constructivist grounded theory tools. The findings show that new teachers experienced conflicts that were both interpersonal (with students, parents and colleagues) and intrapersonal (being 'good enough'; establishing boundaries related to time and engagement; suppression of emotions) as they started out in teaching. In order to cope with these challenges, the beginning teachers used various strategies including collaboration, conformity, influencing and autonomy.
Early career teachers face a range of challenges in their first years of teaching and how these challenges are managed as career implications. Based on current literature, this paper presents a model of early career teacher resilience where resilience is seen as a process located at the interface of personal and contextual challenges and resources. Through a semi-structured interview the challenges faced by 13 Australian early career teachers and the resources available to manage these challenges are examined. Findings show that beginning teachers experience multiple, varied and ongoing challenges and that personal and contextual resources are both important in sustaining them through the beginning year(s) of their teaching careers. The study emphasises the critical roles played by family and friends and the importance of relationships in the resilience process. Implications for future research and teacher education are discussed.
This paper addresses ethical issues in educational research with a focus on the interplay between research ethics and both internal and external quality of research. Research ethics is divided into three domains: (1) ethics within the research community; (2) ethics concerning relationships with individuals and groups directly affected by the research, and (3) ethics related to the external value and role of educational research for various user groups and for the quality of education. The three domains represent different stakeholders and interests. The paper presents an ethical matrix method including three types of matrices. The method combines a systematic and a case-based approach to ethical problems and possibilities. The purpose of the matrices is to serve as a framework for identifying, reflecting, analyzing, and discussing ethical issues and balancing ethical dilemmas in educational research and development.
Thematic analysis is a poorly demarcated, rarely acknowledged, yet widely used qualitative analytic method within psychology. In this paper, we argue that it offers an accessible and theoretically flexible approach to analysing qualitative data. We outline what thematic analysis is, locating it in relation to other qualitative analytic methods that search for themes or patterns, and in relation to different epistemological and ontological positions. We then provide clear guidelines to those wanting to start thematic analysis, or conduct it in a more deliberate and rigorous way, and consider potential pitfalls in conducting thematic analysis. Finally, we outline the disadvantages and advantages of thematic analysis. We conclude by advocating thematic analysis as a useful and flexible method for qualitative research in and beyond psychology.
Developing a universal quality standard for thematic analysis (TA) is complicated by the existence of numerous iterations of TA that differ paradigmatically, philosophically and procedurally. This plurality in TA is often not recognised by editors, reviewers or authors, who promote ‘coding reliability measures’ as universal requirements of quality TA. Focusing particularly on our reflexive TA approach, we discuss quality in TA with reference to ten common problems we have identified in published TA research that cites or claims to follow our guidance. Many of the common problems are underpinned by an assumption of homogeneity in TA. We end by outlining guidelines for reviewers and editors – in the form of twenty critical questions – to support them in promoting high(er) standards in TA research, and more deliberative and reflexive engagement with TA as method and practice.
This book challenges dominant thinking about early career teachers and their work. It offers an in-depth and critical analysis of policies concerning the work of early career teachers and how they are supported during this critical period, when they are highly vulnerable to leaving the profession. Moreover, the book provides examples from actual practice that illustrate how to help early career teachers make a successful transition into the profession. These practices promote early career teachers’ development and help the profession as a whole to capitalize on the new knowledge and skills that these teachers bring to their classrooms and their students.
The book is divided into two main parts. Part 1 deals with the difficult to define process of retaining early career teachers, and its respective chapters consider this broad issue from an international perspective. They explore how policies and practices have an impact on what happens in schools, and what it means to be a teacher and to teach. In turn, Part 2 focuses on the need to reconsider the policies and practices that create the ‘problem’ of early career teachers, and offers alternative ways forward. Each chapter addresses a specific aspect of the early career teacher retention issue, contributing to a greater understanding of how we can rethink the work of early career teachers so that they can more successfully transition into the profession.
Over the past three decades, teacher induction or the socialisation of new teachers into the profession has received ample attention from researchers and policy makers. Despite well-intended interventions to support early career teachers with the challenges of the induction phase, many of these supportive practices have been caught up in deficit thinking and a remedial perspective, which has a number of negative and even counterproductive side effects. After a critical analysis of this dominant discourse and practices, three alternative representations of early career teachers and the complexities of their induction are presented: the early career teacher as a sense-making agent, as a networker and as an asset to the school. Together these representations constitute an agenda for research, policy and practice that can move beyond the remedial perspective. They can open up avenues for more rich and sustainable support that truly promotes early career teachers’ professional learning but at the same time can contribute to innovation and school development.
The purpose of this study was to examine the descriptions of workplace experiences of nine music teachers in direct relation to the literature on micropolitics. Research questions were: (a) How did participant music teachers’ descriptions of their workplace experiences relate to teachers, administrators, and students (as discussed in the micropolitical literature)? and (b) How can micropolitics be used to understand the similarities and differences between a qualitative comparison of the responses from beginning teacher participants and experienced teacher participants? Findings are presented within Hoyle’s [1986. The Politics of School Management. London: Hodder and Stoughton] micropolitical organisational underworld including: (a) cooptation (diversion of potential opposition); (b) displacement (concealing ‘real’ interests); and (c) controlling information. This secondary analysis study revealed that the vast differences in the negotiations and challenges of beginning and more experienced music teachers, most importantly, the ways in which experienced teachers learned to share power with the stakeholders in their settings. Music teachers both shape and are shaped by their micropolitical context which suggests further analysis of organisational structures and power in the workplace may be more important to understanding music teaching and learning than often assumed.
This narrative research focuses on two questions: how do emotions and micropolitics appear in a beginning teacher's work and, what kind of strategies does a beginning teacher use when negotiating emotionally intensive situations in the micropolitical context of the school? The research material consists of three narrative interviews with one beginning Finnish secondary teacher. The results illustrate the significance of school's micropolitics for a beginning teacher's work and the various relational and emotional aspects that are present when a beginning teacher tries to balance between school's micropolitics and a teacher's own values. In addition, the research increases knowledge about how beginning teachers learn to negotiate emotionally intensive situations and use various strategies in the micropolitical context of their work.
The chapter reviews international research on beginning teachers from 2001 onwards on the basis of three thematic areas related to beginning teacher professional learning and identity building and to the specific tasks of teaching and student learning as well as the cognitive, emotional and social aspects involved. It is organised in three thematic sections: (a) subject-matter teaching, cognitive processing and concerns for relevance and student learning on the part of beginning teachers; (b) impact of the teaching and school community contexts and the social and emotional tensions experienced by new teachers, as well as opportunities for collaborative learning and (c) reconfiguration of professional identity from teacher education into classroom teaching, the impact of external policies and the quality of support structures. In relation to each theme, besides providing an overview of related research, two or three specific pieces of relevant studies are examined and used as evidence for conclusions.
Little is known about beginning teachers’ political positioning experiences of the staffroom. This paper employs Bourdieu's conceptual tools of field, habitus and capital to explore beginning health and physical education teachers’ positioning experiences and learning in staffrooms, the place in which teachers spend the majority of their non-teaching school time. From an Australian context, we present beginning (or emerging) teachers’ stories from one rural general staffroom and one urban departmental staffroom. Using the narratives we reflect upon how their positioning in the politics of the staffroom as beginning teachers presented significant challenges including negotiating the professional micropolitics, negotiating capital and negotiating opportunities and risks for reflection and change in contrasting social spaces.
This article focuses on teacher identity. Based on two small stories told in a peer group by a beginning teacher, we ask: How does a beginning teacher tell about her identity as part of the micropolitical context of school? Theoretically and methodologically, the research is committed to a narrative approach in understanding teacher identity. The material consists of small stories based on videotaped peer group discussions of 11 Finnish teachers. The results of the research illustrate the micropolitical context at the heart of how a beginning teacher's identity is constructed through diverse emotionally significant relationships. Narrative ways of working, such as group discussions, can offer teachers an opportunity to recognize different dimensions of their identity.
Preface Part I. Foundations of Research 1. Science, Schooling, and Educational Research Learning About the Educational World The Educational Research Approach Educational Research Philosophies Conclusions 2. The Process and Problems of Educational Research Educational Research Questions Educational Research Basics The Role of Educational Theory Educational Research Goals Educational Research Proposals, Part I Conclusions 3. Ethics in Research Historical Background Ethical Principles Conclusions 4. Conceptualization and Measurement Concepts Measurement Operations Levels of Measurement Evaluating Measures Conclusions 5. Sampling Sample Planning Sampling Methods Sampling Distributions Conclusions Part II. Research Design and Data Collection 6. Causation and Research Design Causal Explanation Criteria for Causal Explanations Types of Research Designs True Experimental Designs Quasi-Experimental Designs Threats to Validity in Experimental Designs Nonexperiments Conclusions 7. Evaluation Research What Is Evaluation Research? What Can an Evaluation Study Focus On? How Can the Program Be Described? Creating a Program Logic Model What Are the Alternatives in Evaluation Design? Ethical Issues in Evaluation Research Conclusions 8. Survey Research Why Is Survey Research So Popular? Errors in Survey Research Questionnaire Design Writing Questions Survey Design Alternatives Combining Methods Survey Research Design in a Diverse Society Ethical Issues in Survey Research Conclusions 9. Qualitative Methods: Observing, Participating, Listening Fundamentals of Qualitative Research Participant Observation Intensive Interviewing Focus Groups Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Methods Ethical Issues in Qualitative Research Conclusions 10. Single-Subject Design Foundations of Single-Subject Design Measuring Targets of Intervention Types of Single-Subject Designs Analyzing Single-Subject Designs Ethical Issues in Single-Subject Design Conclusions 11. Mixing and Comparing Methods and Studies Mixed Methods Comparing Reserch Designs Performing Meta-Analyses Conclusions 12. Teacher Research and Action Research Teacher Research: Three Case Studies Teacher Research: A Self-Planning Outline for Creating Your Own Project Action Research and How It Differs From Teacher Research Validity and Ethical Issues in Teacher Research and Action Research Conclusions Part III. Analyzing and Reporting Data 13. Quantitative Data Analysis Why We Need Statistics Preparing Data for Analysis Displaying Univariate Distributions Summarizing Univariate Distributions Relationships (Associations) Among Variables Presenting Data Ethically: How Not to Lie With Statistics Conclusions 14. Qualitative Data Analysis Features of Qualitative Data Analysis Techniques of Qualitative Data Analysis Alternatives in Qualitative Data Analysis Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Ethics in Qualitative Data Analysis Conclusions 15. Proposing and Reporting Research Educational Research Proposals, Part II Reporting Research Ethics, Politics, and Research Reports Conclusions Appendix A: Questions to Ask About a Research Article Appendix B: How to Read a Research Article Appendix C: Finding Information, by Elizabeth Schneider and Russell K. Schutt Appendix D: Table of Random Numbers Glossary References Author Index Subject Index About the Authors
Beginning teachers most often are viewed as needing significant support in all areas of teaching. As a result, professional development (PD) associated with induction programs typically is presented by experienced professionals. This article describes one induction program’s attempt to draw on the strengths within its network, engaging new teachers as “expert” presenters. Having opportunities to share expertise helped develop a strong sense of collegiality and professionalism within the group and contributed to teachers’ sense of efficacy and confidence in their teaching skills. Postsession evaluations and teacher interviews support the effectiveness of this strategy as part of a comprehensive induction program.
Teachers’ professional learning takes place in an organisational context, in which issues of power, influence, and control can play an important part. In this article, we argue that learning how to deal with these inevitable micropolitical aspects of their work lives, constitutes an important dimension in teachers’ professional development and needs to be included in any appropriate theory on teacher development. We describe this ‘political’ learning process as the development of micropolitical literacy. Although the development of micropolitical literacy may be stimulated and intensified by particular policy measures or reforms, as a learning process it starts at the very beginning of the teacher career. Using the micropolitical perspective as a theoretical framework, we will illustrate this by presenting the results of an interpretative analysis of one primary teacher's story about his first years in teaching.
Research on beginning teachers often focuses on the problems they encounter. This study, however, is based on the view that it is better to build on what people do well rather than to focus on their failures and helplessness. The aim of the study is to investigate teachers’ strengths by examining the areas in which new teachers in upper secondary school in Norway excel, and how they are or could be used as resources in their workplaces. The study is based on open-ended questionnaires completed by new teachers and their mentors as well as on interviews with two new teachers. The new teachers and their mentors find it easy to list areas where experienced teachers can learn from beginners. Nevertheless, there are few examples of new teachers being used as a resource. This article challenges this practice.
New teachers are unprepared for school politics and the conflicts they experience with administrators, colleagues and policies. Research and practice on mentorlog often ignore organizational contexts. This artide explores these under-examined contexts, asking: (1) W'hat do mentors need to know and be able to do in relation to school and district contexts to advocate on behalf of their induction work?; (2) W'hat are the challenges mentors face in their school and district contexts? Drawing on practitioner expertise and an intensive case study, this artide highlights three critical domains ofmentors' politicalliteracy: reading, navigating and advocating. Analyses delineate challenges and promising practices in tapping this knowledge base in action. Mentors' politicalliteracy offers novices a way to act in schools' political climates, to address conflicts and, ultimately, to define a professional identity. Rather than viewing politics as negative, this artide reveals how
The objective of this exploratory study of teacher beliefs was twofold: first, to determine whether the construct of academic optimism could be defined and measured as an individual teacher characteristic as it has been at the collective school level, and second, to identify sets of teacher beliefs and practices that were good predictors of academic optimism. With a diverse sample of American elementary teachers, a second-order principal components analysis supported the hypothesis that academic optimism was a general construct composed of efficacy, trust, and academic emphasis. In addition, dispositional optimism, humanistic classroom management, student-centred beliefs and practices, and organizational citizenship behaviour were individually and collectively related to the explanation of a teacher's sense of academic optimism, controlling for SES.
This study explores different perceptions of pre-service and beginning teachers’ professional identity in relation to their decisions to leave the profession. Teachers’ professional identity was further broken down into six factors: value, efficacy, commitment, emotions, knowledge and beliefs, and micropolitics. This study employed mixed-methods which included 84 participant surveys, and 27 interviews from four groups of participants at different stages of teaching. The findings of this study showed that pre-service teachers tended to have naïve and idealistic perceptions of teaching, and dropout teachers showed most emotional burnout. Implications for improvement of teacher education and retention of beginning teachers are discussed.
This paper investigates beginning teachers collaboratively making sense of and responding to the micropolitical environments of their schools. Drawing on a qualitative multi-case study conducted within the context of a university-sponsored, inquiry-based induction program, this research employs a community of practice frame to examine how novice teachers came to practice “micropolitical literacy.” The paper identifies four dimensions of micropolitical discourse that surfaced in the situated setting of the inquiry groups. The analysis further illustrates how beginning teachers, while participating in inquiry groups, coconstructed understandings of the organizational structures and professional cultures of their schools.
In this economically motivated modern age, when ‘it doesn't pay’ is sufficient reason for the abandonment of the best of causes, martyrs are almost extinct. Most teachers desire above all else a chance to earn a livelihood in peace. They will yield to almost anything rather than have a fight. Often they grumble among themselves and protest ‐ not too loudly lest it be heard by somebody in authority. Most teachers are cowards. Few really care enough for freedom, or any cause that can be defended only through freedom, to risk a comfortable position, litde official favors, or an increase in salary for it. [Beale, 1938, p. 58]
This study explores Estonian novice teachers' perspectives on relationships with mentors and experiences of mentoring and mentors' tasks during their first year of teaching. The induction year with mentoring as one of the support structures was introduced into Estonian teacher education a few years ago. Experiences indicate that this is a valuable support, but there are areas of mentoring that need to be developed. The data are based on thematic interviews with sixteen novice teachers in the second half of their first year of teaching, i.e. the induction year. A content analysis revealed that the novice teachers experienced support for personal development and professional knowledge development, feedback, collegiality, reciprocity of the relationship, mentor availability and mutual trust as components of the mentor–mentee relationship. The study identified undeveloped potential in mentoring related to three main areas: 1) facilitation of reflection, 2) mentor training, and 3) integration of mentoring into the school community as a whole. The last area also includes matters pertaining to socialization and school leadership.
This paper is based upon a unique mixed methods 4-year research project which focused upon the variations in teachers’ work,
lives, and effectiveness of 300 elementary and secondary school teachers in a range of 100 schools across seven regions of
England. Its findings challenge linear conceptions of teacher development and expertise and provide new understandings of
the effects of personal, school and broader policy contexts upon professional life phase trajectories and teachers’ emotional
identities. It finds connections between these and teachers’ commitment, resilience, and effectiveness. This paper discusses
these in relation to the school standards and teacher retention agendas.
The ‘praxis shock’ of beginning teachers not only has to do with issues at the classroom level, but also with teacher socialisation in the school as an organisation. This thesis was studied with beginning primary school teachers in Belgium. Combining a narrative-biographical and a micropolitical approach, the idea that teachers’ actions as members of an organisation are guided by professional interests had a central place in the study. Interpretive analysis of questionnaire and interview data revealed five categories of professional interests: material, organisational, social-professional, cultural-ideological and self-interests. Finally, it is argued that understanding beginning teachers’ micropolitical experiences is important not only for the theory development on teachers’ career-long learning, but also for improving the quality of teacher education and induction programmes.
This paper examines the role of resilience in teacher effectiveness. The concept of resilience is located in the discourse of teaching as emotional practice and is found to be a multidimensional, socially constructed concept that is relative, dynamic and developmental in nature. The paper draws upon findings from a four year research project which explored career long variations in teachers’ commitment and effectiveness. Portraits of three resilient teachers in their early, mid and late careers are used to explore the interaction between teachers’ sense of efficacy, professional and personal identities, and their management of the interaction between these and the professional, situated and personal Scenarios which they experience in each professional life phase. Teachers’ capacity to manage such interactions is a sophisticated process which contributes strongly to the relative strength of their resilience. Understandings of the role of resilience in teachers’ management of the interactions between work and life over the course of a career and in different contexts adds to existing knowledge of variations in teachers’ work, lives, and effectiveness and contributes to the debate on standards, quality and retention.
This is the author's final draft of the paper published as Oxford Review of Education, 2007, 33 (1), pp. 1-17. The final version is available online at http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all?content=10.1080/03054980601094651 Doi: 10.1080/03054980601094651 This paper explores the challenges faced by educational researchers investigating the places where they work. It reviews the literature on insider research and draws upon the author's own experience of researching faculty appraisal at two Higher Education institutions where she taught. It argues that the insider/outsider dichotomy is actually a continuum with multiple dimensions, and that all researchers constantly move back and forth along a number of axes, depending upon time, location, participants and topic. The assumption that one kind of research is better than the other is challenged, and the advantages and disadvantages of insider research are discussed in terms of access, intrusiveness, familiarity and rapport. Finally, three dilemmas relating to informant bias, reciprocity in interviews, and research ethics are examined from an insider researcher's perspective, and the ways in which the author responded to these dilemmas at different points in her own four-year two-site study are critiqued.