Self-efficacy of immigrant teachers in Australia: A literature review

Abstract

Australia has been facing an acute teacher shortage in the past decade. Many immigrant teachers were attracted to and landed in Australia as skilled labours. These highly-skilled talents have been facing hurdles both inside and outside the classroom. Some hurdles include difficulties in getting their qualifications accredited and recognised, discrepancies in classroom management and practices, as well as racism and discrimination. These factors, coupled with anxiety and depression, hampered them to continue their teaching career at their new home. Currently, there are a few research gaps in understanding immigrant teachers' career choices: unhelpful experience in portraying immigrant teachers as outsiders, incapability in examining factors influencing immigrant teachers' career choices diachronically and neglecting the change of immigrant teachers' self-perception from a 'brain gain' to 'brain drain'. This literature review aims at pointing out why self-efficacy in the Social Cognitive Career Theory is an essential guide to examine immigrant teachers' career choices and hence provide insight on solving the teacher shortage problem. Self-efficacy determines whether immigrant teachers are ready to enter or persist in a teaching career before taking action by examining how they postulate their professional development and career trajectories. It can investigate how different contextual and personal factors postulate their self-belief in restarting their teaching career successfully or failingly. Therefore, by examining the interplay between these contextual factors and how these contextual factors influence immigrant teachers' self-belief, it can provide insight on how to curb the teacher retainment problem effectively.