On the Unacknowledged Significance of Teachers' Habitus and Dispositions

Abstract

In recent years, a growing number of studies have focused on teachers’ career trajectories. 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 almost worldwide phenomenon. In a comprehensive meta-analysis Borman and Dowling (2008) summarize 34 studies. The authors refer to Ingersoll (2001) in distancing themselves from previous work which they claim only quantifies the issue. Instead their goal is ‘to understand why attrition occurs or, more formally, what factors moderate attrition outcomes’ (p. 367). Their synthesis of research evidence points to five important constellations of variables affecting attrition and retention (i.e. teacher demographic characteristics, teacher qualifications, school organizational characteristics, school resources and school student body characteristics). They also indicate that teacher attrition rates and the reasons for attrition vary across the lifespan. This latter point is also taken up in the VITAE project (Day et al., 2006) which focuses on variations in teachers’ work, lives and effectiveness during different phases of their careers. Both studies also point out the need for more complex theories and studies which might point to how combinations of factors influence teachers’ career trajectories. However, although both studies are very comprehensive, neither of them touches upon the possibility that socio-economic and sociocultural factors might be mediating factors in explaining variations in trajectories. For Borman and Dowling, teacher demographic characteristics comprise gender, race, age, marital status and number 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 preliminary effort to show that socio-economic and sociocultural factors matter and might provide a missing link in research on teachers’ lives and trajectories. Although this study focuses on teacher education students only, the results indicate that the basic orientations will influence career decisions and thus contribute in explaining different teacher trajectories. However, further research will be needed to supplement and refine the instruments and put the results to scale.