Abstract
Teacher turnover in international schools is high, and recruiting new teachers is a costly endeavor. The purpose of this qualitative, exploratory case study was to examine the personal and professional experiences of expatriate international teachers at international schools to develop a deeper, more heuristic understanding of the international teaching experience, particularly how the experiences might affect their decision to remain at a school past their initial contract period. The conceptual framework used in this study was a model of multi-level cultural influences that impinge on an individual teacher in an international school. The purposive sample was 20 international school teachers who have taught in two or more countries outside of their home country. The data collection included a questionnaire answered by the 20 teachers, 10 of whom agreed to be interviewed. The in-depth, semi-structured interviews took place in Google Meet and were recorded and transcribed using Otter.ai software. Transcripts were member checked. Thematic analysis and triangulation were used to identify and support the findings. The findings revealed that international school teachers follow a progression of life goals when deciding which school to teach at. International school recruiters and administrators can use these findings to inform policy and practices to mitigate the challenges associated with high turnover and costly recruitment, like offering longer contracts and encouraging confidential feedback on administrators’ performance. More research surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion in international schools is required, as well as understanding how the pandemic affected international school teachers.
Keywords
Introduction
Despite the proliferation of international schools, the definition of what constitutes an ‘international school’ is a contentious issue, largely due to the lack of academic research conducted in this specific area (Budrow & Tarc, 2018; Bunnell, 2016; Poole, 2020). Widely held criteria for such a school include that it offers an international curriculum, delivered in English by native speaking expatriate teachers (Poole & Bunnell, 2021). Recruiting and retaining qualified teachers is becoming increasingly more difficult for international schools, and indeed for all schools around the globe as teacher turnover rates increase (Dos Santos, 2020; Hollett et al, 2021; Mancuso et al, 2011; Nguyen et al, 2020a).
According to Odland and Ruzicka (2009), the international school teacher (hereinafter referred to as international teacher) turnover rates at 14.4% rival those in the United States. High teacher turnover negatively impacts school culture and academic success of students (Dos Santos, 2019; Dos Santos, 2020; Fong, 2018; Hollett et al, 2021). Thus, the impetus for international school administrators to retain teachers has become paramount to their success and proliferation.
School administrators can mitigate high teacher turnover by understanding the factors that contribute to expatriate teachers’ decisions not to renew contracts (Fong, 2018; Hollett et al, 2021; Mancuso et al 2011; Odland & Ruzicka, 2009). This is especially important given the prolific global increase in international schools and the resulting high demand for teachers. Keeping existing teachers thus makes more financial and logistical sense for schools (Dos Santos, 2020; Ingersol et al, 2018; Nguyen et al, 2020; Van den Borre et al, 2021).
Many international schools offer two-year contracts and may offer an option to extend the contract, sometimes including a re-signing bonus. Such contracts encourage competition and movement between international schools, which is a nod to Poole and Bunnell’s (2021) notion of transitional capital and its advantages (Dieterle, 2018). When teachers do not extend their contracts and instead choose to leave after two years, it can create a transient culture, one that can lead to gaps in curriculum development and cohesive follow-through resulting in lower student achievement (Hoang, 2020). Thus, the impetus to retain teachers for an additional contract period in an international school helps maintain a cohesive and consistent flow.
An international teacher typically has a greater propensity to adjust and adapt to situations that are outside of their cultural and professional norms (Hollett et al, 2021). This has led to a small body of research surrounding the characteristics of international teachers and how those characteristics determine whether they will renew a teaching contract or move on. Hollett et al (2021) studied the psychological attributes of international teachers to determine which ones correlated with job satisfaction and longer contract periods. Participants were broken down into primary and high school cohorts, and a slight difference was identified between them; elementary teachers with lower impulsivity and higher organizational commitment correlated strongly with holding positions for longer periods, while high school teachers with high stress tolerance and high organizational commitment correlated strongly with longer position duration. Researchers found overall that teachers with a greater propensity towards agreeableness and perspective-taking reported shorter contract periods, which makes the job of recruiting more challenging because these are generally viewed as positive attributes, although they correlate with lower teacher retention (Hollett et al, 2021). In other words, once recruiters secure qualified and dynamic candidates who exhibit the characteristics associated with longer contract duration, administrators need to determine specifically what it will take to retain them for a longer period.
Though it would be easy to assume that financial incentives entice almost everyone to remain in a job, a thorough analysis of research and data surrounding incentives and teacher retention by See et al (2020) concluded that financial incentives are not necessarily the answer to teacher retention. See et al (2020) set out to explore what attracts teachers to the profession, what keeps them in the profession and what schools can do to get the ‘biggest bang for their buck’ when it comes to retaining teachers. While this analysis did not specifically look at international teachers, the findings are worth noting because generalizations arguably can be drawn across the profession since the research cited data from many countries. While lucrative salaries have the potential to entice new teachers to the profession and encourage teachers to teach in less desirable locations, or so-called ‘challenging’ schools with students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, they do not retain teachers, which is to say that once teachers are in the profession there are other variables that affect their desire to renew a contract (See et al, 2020; Qin, 2021). Improving school culture and ethos can contribute to better retention, but only mildly, and thus further inquiry is warranted especially regarding the links between teacher wellbeing and retention (See et al, 2020). This comprehensive review of quantitative studies by See et al is compelling, but one dimensional insofar as it lacks the nuanced and rich context that comes from qualitative research that seeks to understand the ‘why’. The conclusions drawn by See et al (2020) stand in contrast to the study by Mancuso et al (2011) who discovered that international teachers cited benefits and salary as their top reasons for staying. However, it is interesting to note that international teachers who chose not to renew their contract, in this study, did not cite poor salaries as a reason for leaving.
Odland and Ruzicka (2009) reported that the second most important variable cited by international teachers when determining a contract renewal is compensation. Many participants in the study noted that their pay was too low for the living conditions within the host country, especially if only one spouse was working. More recently, Zavelevsky and Lishchinsky (2020) recached the same conclusions, as the participants in their study said their salaries did not compensate for their heavy workloads, lack of tangible support from administrators and the overwhelming burden of dealing with discipline issues. Teachers were concerned over not having retirement plans or not being able to balance their at-home commitments with living abroad, a nod to the precarious nature of international teaching (Poole & Bunnell, 2021; Rey et al, 2020). There is a level of inconstancy with international teaching jobs that teachers often only discover after the fact, so while it is administrators who dictate or control salary scales, it is incumbent upon the teachers to research cost of living conditions prior to accepting contract offers. Many teachers may feel compelled to seek work abroad because the pay in their home countries is not as lucrative as teaching internationally, but while remaining on the international teaching circuit might be motivated by salary, this is not necessarily a factor when deciding to stay at a specific international school (Poole & Bunnell, 2021).
Qin’s (2021) cross-national analysis of how country contexts and working conditions relate to teacher turnover concluded that instead of simply raising teachers’ salaries, there needs to be a multi-pronged approach; one that improves overall working conditions alongside offering higher wages for maximum long-term benefits. However, high salaries and good working conditions were not the only factors found in Qin’s study to improve retention; countries that hold teachers in high esteem and consider the profession to be prestigious can attract and retain high quality teachers despite declining salaries and working conditions (Qin, 2021). Qin’s study is cross-national and presents a global picture but does not specifically relate to international schools and teachers, though their data does once again point to the host country as playing a role in retention.
Another variable that international teachers must consider when renewing a contract is their personal circumstances (Dos Santos, 2019), which are entirely beyond the control of administrators and leadership teams and may include, for instance, having become grandparents and wanting to move back home to fulfil that role, or couples becoming pregnant and wanting to be closer to family (Chandler, 2010). The extent to which the host country and culture contribute to these ‘personal circumstances’ was not considered in the study, and scant research has been done to correlate host country variables against teacher retention or turnover. For example, if a host country had a family-forward culture perhaps a pregnant couple would decide to stay and renew a contract rather than move back to their home country. Mancuso et al (2011) collated a set of ‘spontaneous’ answers to a question in their study relating to other reasons for staying at a school, with one of the most frequently cited being ‘quality of life outside of school’ which included factors concerning the country they live in such as personal safety, standard or cost of living and commute times (p 830). Researchers did not ask participants to expand on these answers, and there is clearly an avenue for additional or deeper research into the role of the host country. What constitutes a good quality of life outside of school, for instance, and are these factors different to those they might experience in their home country? While researching the role of location in retention, Chandler (2010) discovered that when international teachers gave reasons for leaving schools and locations that they were happy with, they cited personal circumstances not related to job or location: for example, leaving jobs to experience new countries or to be with a significant other. These findings echo those of Odland and Ruzicka (2009) who stated personal circumstances as a major factor in international teacher retention.
Research Design
The 20 international teachers who agreed to participate in our case study had experience teaching in international schools for two or more contract periods, in two or more countries. Collectively, they had teaching experience from over 64 different international schools in 34 countries, teaching across different age ranges and a mix of nationalities and genders. All provided informed consent to participate in the study, and were assured that all data would be treated in complete confidence. First, they were asked to complete an online questionnaire to establish that they met our selection criteria, and to answer questions relating to what they considered important when deciding to renew a contract. Ten of the participants then agreed to being interviewed online and their responses being recorded, using semi-structured, field-tested questions, which were designed to elicit each participant’s unique experience and draw more details from the answers in the questionnaires (Merriam, 1998).
After member checking, the data from the questionnaire and the interviews were analysed separately before triangulating to analyze for common themes or patterns (Merriam, 1998; Ospina & Medina, 2020; Yazan, 2015; Yin, 2002). By examining the holistic, interconnected, and rich experiences of expatriate teachers, and identifying the patterns or themes that have emerged from the data, international school administrators could find ways to mitigate challenges and improve retention.
RQ: What are the important issues or factors that international teachers consider when deciding to renew a contract?
Results
Analysis led to the identification of three themes emerging from the questionnaire and interview data, as discussed below, where all names are pseudonyms to protect teachers’ identity.
Theme 1: The Progression of Life Goals
A theme that presented itself repeatedly in the questionnaire and interview data was how the decision to sign, or renew, a contract at an international school will change over time based on professional and personal goals and priorities. There is an understanding that at different times in teachers’ lives, there are different factors to consider, and these factors evolve and change over the course of their career as an international teacher. Gia noted that early on in her international teaching career she valued the type of school she was working at, saying, ‘I feel like, for me, that was sort of my progression, but I think it was all about . . . trying to set myself up to be able to get into the kinds of schools that I want.’ Gia acknowledged that working at certain types of school will give her an edge when applying to better schools in the future. Likewise, Bee suggested that it is possible to outgrow a school, and this could be the impetus to move on: ‘I’m at a place where I’m not really growing anymore. I just kind of feel like maybe I’m outgrowing the school.’ Bee went on to explain that initially she was concerned about the professional experience she was getting but then her priorities changed, and her decisions were centered on proximity to her home country and the professional development that the school offered: I had just finished my certification. [The job] would give me the experience I needed. Whereas when I moved to [country], I was looking for something close to the States and I was looking for a school that had lots of opportunities for professional development. So, it’s pretty different between the two.
14 participants, either on the questionnaire or interview, mentioned the proximity to their home country as being a factor at some point in their career, including Ana who said: Access to my home [country] is very important. The first job I took was a 24-hour plane ride home with lots of stops. I had a couple of scares where I thought something was wrong with my kids . . . that gave me enough of a scare that I knew in my next location, I knew I wanted to be close enough [to home].
whereas Harry noted that his priorities have shifted over time, and location is no longer his first priority: Our priorities have kind of shifted as we’ve gotten older. When we first got into it, it was more of location. We were just all about traveling and seeing new places. But now with kids, we’ve got to make sure they’re getting a pretty good education.
Gia explained that while she still wants to remain abroad there are now factors she must consider like proximity to aging parents. She went on to acknowledge that these priorities are temporary and may change again someday: I love teaching internationally, but my parents are getting older and so I’m kind of like, okay, I feel like it’s my time [to return home] but reminding myself it doesn’t have to be forever because I really love it [teaching internationally].
Proximity to aging parents was mentioned frequently by respondents, including Ivy who said, ‘Now I’m here because my parents are older and I need to, I want to be closer . . .’.
Half of the participants remarked that sometimes it is just time to go home, like Jen, who explained: ‘I just wanted to come home. I just missed home a lot, so yeah, I needed to, I wanted to come home’ or Dee who explained: ‘Then we got a new director, and I was not happy, and I thought it was time to go home.’ Ana expressed it was time to go home because ‘At this age, it’s the fear of losing friends back home, the fear of people moving on and forgetting about you.’ Ana is a retired public school teacher who has chosen to teach internationally during her retirement. She made it clear that her contract renewal decision had very little to do with the school because of her current professional and personal goals: I don’t care about the school really. I’ve built my resume. I’ve had leadership positions. I’ve done everything to funnel my passion for education . . . I’m still trying to make an impact at my current school, but for that school to make an impact on me and change me is probably not going to happen.
Bee reflected on her journey and confirmed this theme of the progression of life goals when she said: When I first moved abroad I wanted the adventure, and then as you travel enough places or live enough places, you start to narrow it down to the things that are important to you and . . . at the end of the day it’s still about that balance that I can have between work and my personal life . . . I wonder how different my answers would have been ten years ago!
As lives change, so do priorities and goals, both professionally and personally. International teachers navigate this progression of life goals when deciding to renew a contract at an international school. Factors emerging here include gaining professional experience, working at a school with a good reputation, professional opportunities for one’s spouse and a good environment for one’s children, proximity to one’s home country and the feelings associated with being away from friends and family for long periods of time.
Theme 2: The Inherent Elitist Nature of International Schools
This theme could be contentious depending on one’s definition of an international school. As noted in the introduction above, the landscape of what constitutes an international school is vast and even with the definition guiding this research, there are nuances which will be explored in the discussion. Unlike western public schools or local private schools, international schools may cater to international teachers in an elitist way that is valued by some of the participants. For example, Ana explained: That is one of the things that international schools have over public schools, they have an obligation to take care of the people that they bring into their country. I could call anybody from HR on a weekend and say, I just got stopped by the police, can you help me?
Ivy said that ‘The school really took care of us and shielded us from a lot of the nonsense that was going on, the political turmoil.’ She went on to explain that she values help with things: ‘Like getting a driver’s license, renewing your paperwork, it can be a real pain so does the school take care of you and help you out? Or don’t they?’ Jen said she valued her school because ‘I had health care and there were people there to do your accommodation, and there were people there to help you, like when I was in the hospital.’
Along with direct help from the schools for day-to-day issues, two participants expressed in the interview the importance of living in places where they had the salary to afford extra help in the home. Eve explained: I’m not going to lie; I love being able to have full time help. We handled [the pandemic] a lot better than a lot of people because we had that third person that was there with us, and my house was cleaned for the past seven years.
Harry echoed the sentiment by saying ‘That was a no brainer, we knew we would get maternity leave and we would have nannies that would be able to support.’ The benefit packages offered by international schools often include stipends for things that traditional public schools would not cover. Participants explained that they valued these factors connected to benefit packages. For example, Eve explained that: We explicitly looked for a school that would fly us home every year, have a shipment at the beginning and end of the contract. We wanted free housing because we were at a place where we’d blown all of our savings and we needed to rebuild that.
while Harry described the school-paid compound where he lives with his family: It’s like a mini city. It’s got its own fire department and library, medical hospital, gyms. It’s just a good overall community for our kids to grow up in. We don’t lock our doors. Crime is non-existent here. Definitely kind of a bubble.
Harry acknowledged that his compound is ‘a bubble’ and the data showed that this phenomenon is an inherent part of international teaching in some contexts: teachers live and work in a bubble that keeps them safely removed from the local life which can have both positive and negative implications that need to be considered. Dee gave two examples that illustrate this point: Our school was right across the street from one of the biggest favelas in [Brazil]. So, every morning we’re walking to work and they’re walking into work in the opposite direction. That was very uncomfortable for me. I felt guilty all the time . . . My gym backed onto the favela. So, you walked in the front door, you’re in this fancy gym . . . $200 workout outfits, hair and nails are done. They were doing construction, so we had to go in the back. We had to walk 20 meters into the favela to get through the back door. Shocking. People don’t have water and it’s right there. That’s uncomfortable.
Dee went on to highlight what may be an ugly reality for some international teachers: ‘Everyone wants to think they’re doing something to help or that they’re not part of the problem. I was probably part of the problem.’
Between the questionnaire responses and interviews, over half of the participants expressed their desire for more diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the schools they work in, although it is hard to find. Eve said: I have a problem in international schools, there’s very much a good old boy’s network of white males that just trade positions at schools and don’t necessarily get any better or learn from their mistakes or grow. They just keep switching up schools . . . We looked for diversity. And all international schools are not good at . . . they have diversity but it’s a lot of like European white people diversity.
Dee echoed this by saying: ‘I had two directors in Barcelona, two in Brazil, and one in Singapore, . . . they were all white men.’ Bee outlined the issues associated with DEI that she had been experiencing in her current school. explaining that: We believe in a nuclear family. We believe in two genders. We do not talk about LGBT issues . . . this was on a piece of paper [referring to a document issued by the school] saying this is who we are. And that was a big red flag.
Ana explained that the generally higher salaries paid to administrators in international schools can be problematic.
There might be a little bit more money in international schools and so they have opportunities to put people into leadership positions where they see need . . . and things become too top heavy. So, you have these leadership structures in place, and they need to justify their jobs. So sometimes I think leadership is a little head in the clouds where they don’t really understand, they don’t remember the day-to-day life of a teacher. They just forget and they’re rewarded for forgetting because it looks like the policies that they’re implementing at the top look great and sound great.
Ana went on to explain that the elitist nature of teaching in an international school can weigh heavy. She said: ‘The work ethic is a little stronger in international school settings because [teachers] know the parents are paying. That was on my mind every day. I have to deliver a $12,000 a year curriculum and education for these kids.’ Elitist practices underpinning schools’ DEI philosophies may be among factors considered when teachers are deciding to renew a contract.
Theme 3: The precarious journey of international teaching
The world of international teaching may be precarious, as noted by seven of the ten interview participants as they gave examples of how they experienced their own professional precariousness. The precarious nature of international teaching can stem from the school itself, or from the country and its political stability.
Eighteen of the twenty participants noted in their questionnaire and/or interview that they looked for a school that had a good reputation. Fred highlighted that: ‘the first [consideration] was the reputation of the organization, whether I thought it was credible or not, because in the international world there’s a lot of scams.’ Dee echoed this by explaining: I went to a job fair, and they were all equal in my eye. So now I know . . . I call them A, B, C or D schools, like [the B, C or D schools] you’re not going to get paid much and they might cancel your contract at Christmas time and those kinds of acts.
Gia noted the precarious nature of international schools when she said: They had our salaries frozen and they had told us that they might have to let some teachers go but they weren’t sure. I was the only single person in my department, so I was like, look the writing is on the wall. I’m gonna obviously be the first one to go.’
Harry explained that in one of his schools ‘They give you an English contract but then there’s a Brazilian contract and that’s the legal one.’ And when there was a currency crash in Brazil and it affected teachers’ salaries, he said: ‘We didn’t have any recourse. If that happened in the States, I can guarantee that you could sue them.’ Dee experienced the same issue and expressed that a deal breaker for her was: Not following through on things that were in the contract. We had a clause in our contract about currency protection but then we got currency protection on like 25% of our salaries, not the whole thing. It wasn’t quite really cut in half, but it was twice the work, so that was a problem too.
Along with worrying about a school’s reputation and their follow-through on contractual obligations, half of the participants explained how they had to navigate political precariousness as well. Eve explained that: The government got a new president, and they were very anti-immigration and expat, so they passed a law that said everybody that had been in the country teaching for five years or longer had to leave . . . more than 50 teachers had to leave all at once and most of us did not want to, people who had been there forever, it was crazy.
Fred had a similar experience: One of the reasons I left the school is your residence visa is connected to your contract . . . and the school, the country is notorious that they make big decisions, and they can fire thousands of teachers at a time. So, if they fired me not only would I lose my job, I lose my residence visa . . . it would be very difficult with a wife and two kids to uproot and move so we made the decision to kind of start the process to leave.
while Eve explained that: My husband’s [contract] was not renewed because the financial crisis hit and financially people were pulling their kids out of school, and they just didn’t have enough classes, so they just cut the newest people.
In most of these examples, the precarious nature of schools and the political stability of a country are inextricably linked. International teachers navigate these complex factors when deciding on renewing teaching contracts.
Discussion
When renewing contracts, international teachers face issues surrounding their own personal life journey and the progression or changes in life goals. Seminal literature has indeed highlighted these issues as including personal circumstances or spontaneous decisions that fall outside of the realm of organizational or school control. Scant research has been done on the extent to which these personal circumstances are affected by or connected to the host country (Chandler, 2010; Dos Santos, 2019; Mancuso et al, 2011; Odland & Ruzicka, 2009). An individual’s cultural heritage is at the heart of Joslin’s (2002) model of cultural influences that impact the international teaching experience. In other words, the teacher’s decision-making process stems from personal reasons that can change over time and are reflected in the schools they select to work at and the countries they choose to live in. It should be noted that in most cases the personal issues described by participants were not something that the school administration or leadership could control or mitigate; however, it could be argued that if administrators understood a prospective teacher’s ‘why’ during the recruitment process, they could focus on aligning the school’s mission and values with those of the potential new recruits. For example, if a potential ‘new hire’ values mentorship and the school does not offer or facilitate a mentoring program, administrators need to acknowledge this misalignment and foresee a potential lack of retention at the next renewal period. Viewing the ‘why’ is a macro-level way of identifying an educator’s motives and value system, thus helping administrators to find the right fit for their school and potentially lengthen the contract duration (Savva, 2015).
The elitist nature of international schools was highlighted as a theme that emerged from the data, although this theme does not receive much attention in current literature. Instead, it is addressed when discussing the compensation and benefit packages within international schools. Compensation is not considered a major factor that teachers consider when renewing contracts (See et al, 2020). Depending on the country and school, benefit packages in international schools may be lucrative due to the elite and affluent communities they tend to serve (Poole & Bunnell, 2021). Poole and Bunnell (2021) observed privileges awarded international teachers beyond competitive salaries such as light teaching loads, free health benefits, paid tuition for dependants, free accommodation and generous travel and relocation allowances. The data from this study took these findings one step further, by highlighting the additional help international teachers receive from the school surrounding housing and health matters and access to affordable paid help outside of school, such as nannies or housekeepers, that would ordinarily not be an option in their home country.
Poole and Bunnell (2021) posit that teachers benefit from the elitist nature of international schools (such as compensation and benefits) while balancing these with the precarious nature of the international teaching landscape (for instance governmental instability or contract law). Our findings indeed support Poole and Bunnell’s (2021) argument that despite the challenges associated with international teaching, many international teachers continue to remain in their careers, even if it means switching to a new school or a new country for better working conditions: the cosmopolitan capital earned outweighs the precariousness of international teaching. Participants in the study showed that they were aware of the precarious nature of international teaching, but they had developed strategies for finding better schools or other countries to mitigate the negative factors or challenges they experienced. Participants discussed the school’s reputation as being a factor in their decision-making process and acknowledged that even within what might be considered an elitist landscape there is indeed a hierarchy, with some schools being viewed as ‘tier one’. When pressed, participants attributed much of a school’s reputation to being connected to the type of international curriculum offered (such as offering International Baccalaureate programmes), the international accreditations held (such as those of WASC, or of the Council of International Schools (CIS)), and the clientele it caters to (relatively affluent and often globally mobile). While labeling international schools as elitist might seem too generalised, it should be noted that it is referring to the schools experienced by teachers in this study, and their perceptions.
The data surrounding issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and international schools warrants additional research. The concept was brought up by participants, but only to highlight the lack of DEI and specifically the lack of diversity within administration which tends to be mostly white men. The comments made by participants mirror the findings of Gardner-McTaggart (2018) which noted that the ‘winning template’ for an international school director is white, English, Christian and male (p113).
Clearly the findings of this study, undertaken with a small number of teachers in a limited number of contexts, cannot be generalised to the growing and increasingly diverse numbers of international schools worldwide and those who choose to teach in them. We believe, however, that a number of important issues have been raised here which throw light on the reasons behind teachers’ decisions relating to the renewal, or otherwise, of international school contracts, and that our findings make an important contribution to the growing field of international school-related research.
Footnotes
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.