5: The New Concept of ‘Transition Capital’: A Positive Coping Strategy

In spite of the enormous growth in the scale of the field, and the accepted insecurity and precarity, the literature regarding the social reality of being an IST, in general, is still surprisingly very under-developed. Bailey’s (2015a, p. 6) study in the context of the ‘Type C1’ school in Malaysia had identified, quite correctly, a ‘paucity of data examining teachers’ work in international schooling’. Surprisingly, perhaps shockingly, this comment echoes with those found in literature two decades ago; it was noted (Bunnell, 2014, p. 95) that ‘The labour market in international schooling has always been a neglected area of research, although it seems a precarious and ill-equipped one’. Taking this ‘neglected area of research’ forward, we can use the two stories told in Chapter 4 to imagine how each of our participants uses turnover via the short-term contract (which sounds negative, and is usually presented in literature as being so) as a positive strategy to move beyond the present situation of insecurity and precarity, and to achieve a better condition.