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Abstract
While there is discrepancy about the actual percentage of early career teachers that leave teaching in their first five years, one consistent discovery in a number of countries is that attrition is high for early career teachers. I became curious about early career teacher attrition as I watched colleagues leave the profession that they thought was a lifelong calling. In order to inquire into this phenomenon, I moved through a three-stage research process. First, I engaged in writing a series of stories about my experiences as a beginning teacher. Using autobiographical narrative inquiry, I then inquired into the stories in order to retell them looking for resonances across the stories. Secondly, I conducted a review of the literature, analyzing the studies to identify how the problem of early career teacher attrition was conceptualized. I identified two dominant problem frames: a problem frame situated within the individual and a problem frame situated in the context. Lastly, I offered a different conceptualization of the phenomenon of early career teacher attrition that draws on my autobiographical narrative inquiry and the literature review. I frame the problem of teacher attrition, not as a personal or a contextual problem frame, but as a problem of teacher identity making and identity shifting.
Notes
1. Early career teacher attrition rates across Canada are difficult to assess, as there are no large national studies. The research that has been done is in a number of provincial contexts. In Alberta, the site of this study, beginning teacher attrition is cause for concern. The percentage of beginning teachers leaving the profession in Alberta is similar to the percentage of teachers leaving in the USA and England. A recent study done by the Alberta Teachers Association confirms the numbers leaving, and researchers note that a number of those who have not left have intentions to leave in the near future (Alberta Teachers Association, 2010). While teacher attrition is a problem in countries such as the USA, and United Kingdom other countries such as Korea, Japan, and Italy do not have teacher attrition issues (OECD, 2005, p. 171). Therefore, early career teacher attrition is not a global phenomenon. There are, however, studies in the USA, England, and Australia. This study will add to work being done in Canada surrounding early career teacher attrition.
2. In order to provide anonymity, I addressed the school board as only that. The school board, located in a large urban district, has programs to meet the needs of the diverse student population.
3. The Grade 7–9 junior high school of approximately 500 diverse students is located in a middle-class neighborhood. The school offered second language classes, an honors program, and a behavioral program.
4. ‘Stories to live by’ is a phrase ‘given meaning by the narrative understanding of knowledge and context. Stories to live by are shaped by such matters as secret teachers’ stories, sacred stories of schooling and teachers’ cover stories’ (Connelly & Clandinin, Citation1999, p.4).
5. Borderlands are described as ‘those spaces that exist around borders where one lives with the possibility of multiple plot lines’ (Clandinin & Rosiek, Citation2006, p. 59). Borderlands, used metaphorically, may be both internal and external. Borderlands are places of tension or struggle.
6. Alberta and Saskatchewan are neighboring Canadian provinces. Teacher education and certification are under provincial jurisdiction.
7. Cover stories enable teachers whose teacher stories are marginalized by whatever the current story of school is to continue to practice and to sustain their teacher stories. (Clandinin & Connelly, Citation1996, p. 25).
8. The research is not clear on how many of these individuals who leave for family reasons actually return to teaching at a later date.
9. This experience might be interpreted as an experienced colleague trying to protect or support me. However, as I reflected on my own embodied experience, this was not my interpretation of the event. While the individual may have been attempting to provide support, I felt as though my knowledge was not important. Researchers have inquired into the discrepancy between beginning teachers’ perceptions of support received and the perceptions of support provided by experienced teachers and administrators (Andrews, Gilbert, & Martin, Citation2006).
10. We review alternative conceptualizations of beginning teacher attrition (Clandinin, Downey, & Huber, Citation2009; Flores & Day, Citation2006; Olson, Citation2008; Rinke, Citation2006; Smethen, Citation2007; Sumsion, Citation2002) in Schaefer, Long & Clandinin, Citation2012).
11. I was a university facilitator when this experience took place. I was responsible for 12 student teachers and was expected to observe each of them once a week and to provide written feedback to each of them. At this time, I was a full-time graduate student. At research-intensive universities in Canada, this is not an unusual way for practicum supervision to be offered. This type of pre-service teacher support should certainly become part of the dialog surrounding beginning teacher attrition.