On the unacknowledged Significance of Teachers´ Habitus and Dispositions

Abstract

In recent years, a growing number of studies have focused on teachers’ careertrajectories. At the same time there has been a special focus on attrition and retention,with worries about a sufficient supply of qualified teachers seemingly an almostworldwide phenomenon. In a comprehensive meta-analysis Borman and Dowling(2008) summarize 34 studies. The authors refer to Ingersoll (2001) in distancingthemselves from previous work which they claim only quantifies the issue. Insteadtheir goal is ‘to understand why attrition occurs or, more formally, what factorsmoderate attrition outcomes’ (p. 367). Their synthesis of research evidence points tofive important constellations of variables affecting attrition and retention (i.e. teacherdemographic characteristics, teacher qualifications, school organizational characteristics,school resources and school student body characteristics). They also indicatethat teacher attrition rates and the reasons for attrition vary across the lifespan. Thislatter point is also taken up in the VITAE project (Day et al., 2006) which focuseson variations in teachers’ work, lives and effectiveness during different phases oftheir careers. Both studies also point out the need for more complex theories andstudies which might point to how combinations of factors influence teachers’ careertrajectories. However, although both studies are very comprehensive, neither of themtouches upon the possibility that socio-economic and sociocultural factors might bemediating factors in explaining variations in trajectories. For Borman and Dowling,teacher demographic characteristics comprise gender, race, age, marital status andnumber of children, while Day et al. primarily focus on generational factors.In the explorative study on which this chapter is based, I have made a preliminaryeffort to show that socio-economic and sociocultural factors matter and mightprovide a missing link in research on teachers’ lives and trajectories. Although thisstudy focuses on teacher education students only, the results indicate that the basicorientations will influence career decisions and thus contribute in explaining differentteacher trajectories. However, further research will be needed to supplementand refine the instruments and put the results to scale.<br/