Chapter 8: Teacher Agency in the Context of Teacher Retention: Narratives of Teachers Who Leave

The topic of teacher retention has gained strong attention in the academic literature of teacher education for more than a decade. Studies have focused on teacher mentoring (e.g., Odell&Ferraro, 1992), the role of school administration (e.g., Boyd et al., 2011), retention models and strategies (e.g., Burke, Aubusson, Schuck, Buchanan,&Prescott, 2015), and professional preparation (e.g., Zhang&Zeller, 2016), among others. Although the existing studies indicate the complexity of teacher retention and attrition, a large majority of them have relied only on survey data, which is limited in the scope of qualitative detail available and does not allow for an in-depth analysis of individual participants’ narratives as a means of understanding how their lived experiences as teachers inform their career choices. Furthermore, most of the studies have investigated the perceptions and experiences of preservice or inservice teachers. Very few studies have focused on the teachers who actually taught and left the profession. Rinke’s (2013, 2014) investigations into the perceptions of teachers who left, including the “exploratory” perspective that some teachers take when entering the teaching profession, highlight the importance of considering teachers’ long-term plans when entering the teaching profession.