Turning to teaching: gender and career choice

Abstract

As the largest public sector institution in the United Kingdom, education is a key site for studying the context of ‘choice’ and changes in the identities of professional workers in contemporary society. Recruitment and retention problems in education have led to the creation of new routes into teaching to attract career changers from other professions and occupations. In this paper we focus on career changers within the Economic and Social Research Council project ‘Primary Teacher Identity, Commitment and Career in Performative School Cultures’ who have entered teaching from other private sector occupations. We analyse these career changes in terms of ‘turning points’ in the participants’ lives in order to assess the extent to which choices are ‘self‐initiated’, ‘forced’ or ‘structural’. We are interested in the basis on which these choices were made and the impact of gender on career decisions.

Keywords:

• primary teachers
• choice
• career changes
• turning points
• gender

Acknowledgements

The research on which this article was based (‘Primary Teacher Identity, Commitment and Career in Performative Cultures’ 2005–2007, Award Reference RES‐000‐23‐0748) was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, whose support is gratefully acknowledged. The authors are also extremely grateful for the helpful and critical comments of two anonymous referees. We acknowledge the support and help of Bob Jeffrey of The Open University.