Abstract
Ongoing teacher recruitment and retention challenges in England mean that it is essential that we learn from those who have experienced longevity in the profession. Teaching in England Post −1988 offers a series of important and timely insights into long-serving teachers’ career histories and professional experiences. Joan Woodhouse explores the in-depth and retrospective narratives of nine teachers who started their careers in the 1970s and 1980s. Utilising an IPA methodology, the author examines the impact that education policy shifts since 1988 have had on career-long teachers’ work, as well as the factors that have contributed to their staying in the profession. The reader is offered a longitudinal and under-researched perspective on the topic of teacher retention.
The book is organised into eight chapters. It begins with a comprehensive introduction to the many policy shifts and reforms that have taken place in English education since the Education Reform Act (ERA) in 1988. A useful timeline of key policy shifts in English Education, from the ERA to the Academies Act of 2010, is presented. This is striking as it details on two pages the sheer pace and scale of change that teachers post-1988 have had to navigate. The author's review of the existing literature highlights what is known about the impact of these policy shifts on teachers’ work, sense of professionalism, and the pressures they face. The motivations and institutional factors framing and shaping teachers’ career decision-making are also considered.
After outlining the study's research design and some important reflections related to researcher positionality, a chapter dedicated to participants’ vignettes is presented. This is a particularly rich aspect of the book and adds to the reader's later engagement with both findings chapters. The author's findings are organised thematically and are interwoven with fascinating excerpts from the author's interview data. The book ends with a conceptual model based on the participants’ narratives. An ‘ideal type’ of the career-long teacher focused on ‘vocation’, ‘wisdom’, and ‘agency’ is presented. Woodhouse notes that this model ‘is not intended to be an exact match for any one person’ (p. 82). Instead, it explores the ways in which ‘a combination of vocation and wisdom empowers teachers to exert their agency in taking ownership of required change, and in developing strategies for contextualised policy implementation” (p. 82-3). This conceptual model is an important theoretical contribution to the literature concerned with teacher recruitment, retention, and attrition.
The book is written in an engaging and accessible style. Drawing on over 40 years of experience as an educator in both secondary and higher education, Joan Woodhouse presents a rich analysis of the experiences of some of those who have worked in the teaching profession long term. A particular strength of the text is the careful attention paid to individual teacher's career stories. Chapters five to seven offer readers a rich insight into the lived experiences and motivations of each participant. The section devoted to the teachers’ motivations and their sustained commitment to ‘making a difference’ is powerful and will resonate with any career educator who reads this book.
It is notable, however, that this book is limited to the experiences of nine white British or European career-long teachers. Future research focused on longevity in the teaching profession might usefully explore the extent to which ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and other strands of identity impact longevity in the teaching profession. As Woodhouse notes, research focused on those who have left the profession because of the policy shifts documented in this book would also be illuminating.
The findings of this study suggest that, despite the shifting policy climate experienced in education over the last three decades or so, a sense of vocation, self-belief, and agency can sustain educators as they experience and implement change. These findings will be of particular interest to policymakers as they continue to grapple with low teacher recruitment and rising leaving rates. This book will also be of relevance to current educational leaders who are seeking to retain teachers. Woodhouse's conceptual model of the career-long teacher, particularly the section highlighting career-long teachers' values and motivations, can provide leaders with an opportunity to reflect on the role they play in reducing teacher retention and nurturing longevity. Postgraduate students, teacher educators, and those with a scholarly interest in educational leadership, policy, and change, as well as teachers' lives and careers, will learn something from engaging with this insightful and readable book. Its longitudinal view and conceptual model offer much food for thought.
