When performativity meets agency: how early career teachers struggle to reconcile competing agendas to become ‘quality’ teachers

ABSTRACT

Early career teachers are increasingly required to be ‘classroom ready’ upon graduation and to demonstrate capabilities that match their more experienced colleagues. They are also joining a profession that is characterised by increased scrutiny and accountability driven by standards that seek to identify the hallmarks of good teaching. This agenda, constructed around a discourse of ‘quality’, has created dilemmas for early career teachers. However, little is known about how early career teachers navigate these pressures as they begin their careers. This article reports on a study that sought high-achieving graduate teachers’ perceptions of teacher quality and how they assessed their own practices within a ‘quality’ framework. The study found that high-achieving early career teachers wrestle with their perceptions of what a ‘good’ teacher might be and do, and how this contrasts with official representations of a ‘quality teacher’, and that they frequently ‘govern’ themselves using the regulations and discourses related to ‘the quality teacher’. We argue that broader conceptualisations of teacher quality are needed to enable early career teachers to develop as agentic professionals.

KEYWORDS:

• Early career teachers
• quality teachers
• performativity
• agency

Acknowledgments

This article is an outcome of the Retaining Quality Teachers Study funded by the Australian Research Council (LP130100830). Principals Australia Institute contributed funds and in-kind support to this project. Note: the views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect Principals Australia Institute’s policies. We would like to acknowledge the research assistance provided by Dr Peter Arnold and the editorial assitance provided by Kate Leeson, which was funded by the Research in Educational and Social Inclusion Concentration, University of South Australia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The Retaining Quality Teachers Study was funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant (LP130100830). See www.rqt.edu.au for further details.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [LP130100830].

Notes on contributors

Anna Sullivan

Anna Sullivan is Director of the Research in Educational and Social Inclusion Concentration and Professorial Lead (Research Evaluation and Performance) at the University of South Australia.

Bruce Johnson

Bruce Johnson is Emeritus Professor at the University of South Australia. His research interests include human resilience, early career teachers, classroom management and sexuality education.

Michele Simons

Michele Simons is currently Professor and Dean, School of Education at Western Sydney University. Her research focusses on learning in workplaces, workforce development, career and vocational education.

Neil Tippett

Neil Tippett is a Research Fellow at the University of South Australia. He is currently working on an Australian Research Council Linkage grant investigating how schools foster refugee student resilience. His research focuses on student behaviour, school bullying and wellbeing.