Early Career Teachers and Their Need for Support: Thinking Again

Abstract

Over the past three decades, teacher induction or the socialisation of new teachers into the profession has received ample attention from researchers and policy makers. Despite well-intended interventions to support early career teachers with the challenges of the induction phase, many of these supportive practices have been caught up in deficit thinking and a remedial perspective, which has a number of negative and even counterproductive side effects. After a critical analysis of this dominant discourse and practices, three alternative representations of early career teachers and the complexities of their induction are presented: the early career teacher as a sense-making agent, as a networker and as an asset to the school. Together these representations constitute an agenda for research, policy and practice that can move beyond the remedial perspective. They can open up avenues for more rich and sustainable support that truly promotes early career teachers’ professional learning but at the same time can contribute to innovation and school development