Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
There is insufficient research focusing on the perspective of teachers nearing the end of their working lives, and even less offering career length studies on the changes in England over the past few decades. 1988 saw the start of substantive policy shift with the Education Reform Act, and the following years have seen an unprecedented pace and rate of policy shifts. Joan Woodhouse explores the career-histories and reflections of teachers, and how their teaching practices and approach to their work were impacted by the ever-evolving landscape. The insights are critical to understanding this era of reform directly from those who have experienced and implemented the changes.
Drawing on in-depth interviews with teachers, Teaching in England Post-1988 affords new understandings of an under-researched group, bringing to light experiences of implementing reform in schools. It raises questions about why, given the pressure they faced, teachers remained in the profession when so many of their peers had quit ahead of retirement age.
Presenting a conceptual model explaining career-long teachers’ longevity, Teaching in England Post-1988 provides context to help current and future governments develop policy and strategies to reverse the trend of attrition, addressing the much-discussed teacher and headteacher shortage. This is also essential reading for educational researchers and teacher educators.
Accounts of change in education tend to focus on capturing how policy is developed at a system level. Teaching in England Post-1988 is important because it examines a 30-year period of unprecedented change in English schools through in-depth interviews which capture the lived experiences of some of the teachers who survived it.
This enables it to offer a detailed, longitudinal perspective that remains all too rare, and new insights into how and why teachers maintain their commitment to teaching and schools in the face of increasing pressures and demands.
As a result, it should be read carefully by everyone interested in the future of schools and of education more widely.
Joan Woodhouse is currently Associate Professor of Education in the School of Education at the University of Leicester, UK. Joan has been teaching for over forty years in a range of middle and senior leadership roles, leading teams to translate policy into practice in school and university contexts.
Chapter 1. Teaching in an era of reform: policy shift since 1988 in English state education
Chapter 2. Impact of policy shift on teachers’ work
Chapter 3. Teacher retention: understanding why they stay
Chapter 4. Methodology: gathering career history narratives
Chapter 5. Career histories
Chapter 6. Findings and discussion (i): Perceptions of the impact of policy shift since 1988 on teachers’ work
Chapter 7. Findings and discussion (ii) Factors helping to sustain teachers career-long in the teaching profession
Chapter 8. Understanding the lived experience and longevity of the career-long teacher