Quality Retention and Resilience in the Middle and Later Years of Teaching

Abstract

This chapter focuses on research that has investigated how mid- and later-career teachers sustain or do not sustain their commitment to teaching to the best of their ability. Closely associated with this, it examines their capacity for resilience in changing policy contexts that may challenge or threaten their otherwise relatively stable sense of professional identity, sense of agency, moral purpose and perceived teaching effectiveness. It takes as givens that schools are more likely to be successful in their instrumental and broader social and humanitarian purposes if they engage in the recruitment and quality retention of teachers who are committed and resilient. It draws upon evidence from a range of research internationally that (i) resilience is both a psychological and sociocultural phenomenon which is best understood as not only an innate disposition or asset but as a latent, dynamic, relational process within a social system of interrelationships; (ii) for all teachers, particularly those who always endeavour to teach to the best of their ability and well, teaching is inherently an emotionally and intellectually stressful work; (iii) therefore all teachers, especially those who strive to teach to the best of their ability and well in these circumstances, require the capacity for ‘everyday resilience’; and (iv) this demands not only the capacity to ‘bounce back’ in extremely adverse circumstances, but the capacity to manage, rather than ‘cope’ with, the everyday challenges that teachers face in their work.