Whitfield, Louise (2022) A Rollercoaster of Challenges and Rewards: How Primary Early Career Teachers (ECTs) in England navigate and manage their professional identity against the current educational policy context. Doctoral thesis, York St John University.
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Text (Doctoral thesis)
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Abstract
This thesis focuses on how Early Career Teachers (ECTs) manage their professional identity and how this is impacted by the employing context and the government’s educational agenda. Given the recent changes to induction in England through the Early Career Framework (ECF) (DfE 2019) and the focus on teacher retention, the study looks at the challenges ECTs face in navigating their individual journeys
through induction and the impact of national policy and nuances in employing contexts. Literature highlights how teacher development is often characterised by the ability to demonstrate certain competencies and identity struggles, with the emphasis on surviving induction rather than exercising autonomy or developing professional identity.
Framed within a constructionist epistemology, this small-scale case study focuses on the experiences of five ECTs during their first two years of Primary teaching. Semi-structured interviews were the main form of data collection, allowing for a deep insight into experiences. Findings identified a focus on power relations, the importance, and understanding, of support for ECTs and how their focus on care often opposes the government’s emphasis on assessment and data. These themes have been interwoven through analysis chapters focusing on different levels of policy trajectory: macro (national policy), meso (school policy enactment) and micro level (individual ECTs’ understanding and enactment of policy). Theories drawn upon to build engagement with the emerging issues include Wenger’s (1998) Communities of Practice, Noddings’ (2003) ethics of care, and Foucault’s (1983) four axes of ethical self-formation.
Several themes were identified including the importance of ECT voice in future policy to address the divide between generation and enactment, a whole school approach towards induction and the need for greater ECT autonomy to allow for professional identity formation. The discussion also raises
implications for practice for ITE providers, employing schools and the ECTs themselves.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Status: | Published |
| Subjects: | L Education > LB Theory and practice of education |
| School/Department: | School of Education, Language and Psychology |
| URI: | https://ray.yorksj.ac.uk/id/eprint/8002 |
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