Abstract:

In this paper, we examine how evolutions related to the fragmentation of labour markets, the flexibilisation of work and employment conditions, and the multiplication of teacher training models and teachers’ roles in schools, are contributing to reshaping teachers’ careers. Drawing on interviews with teachers and senior leaders from 8 schools in London, our analyses highlight six career patterns and their embeddedness in the changing institutional environment of labour markets for teachers. Our results help renew the dialogue between research on teachers’ professional lives and on teachers’ labour markets. They have wider implications for knowledge on the fragmentation of the teaching profession, beyond the London case.

British Journal of Sociology of Education. Published online 17 January 2023

https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2023.2167703

Abstract:

This chapter presents an overview of a set of studies conducted in the context of the TeachersCareers project to understand the reshaping of the teaching workforce in England, and the reconfiguration of labor markets for teachers. Studies include interviews with HR and line managers on the flexibilization of HR practices and the labor market; social network analyses of teacher flows between schools in the London labor market to study patterns of teacher mobility; and trajectory analyses based on individual interviews with 47 secondary school teachers. Key results show limited external flexibilization but pervasive forms of internal flexibilization (regarding working time, pay, and job boundaries and workplaces); embedded employment relations into internal labor markets; and a fragmentation of career models and types. Results are discussed in terms of theories of liberalization, professionalism, and the institutional foundations and embeddedness of labor markets for teachers.

In: Menter I. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Teacher Education Research. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59533-3_59-2

Abstract:

This paper looks at the flexibilisation of teachers’ employment relations in England in the context of an accelerated deregulation of work and employment conditions and of educational provision. It brings to light a contrasted picture, where external flexibilisation, through the recruitment of unqualified teachers, seems to be contained by a mixture of diverse but convergent interests and norms from the State, teacher unions and employers. Meanwhile, forms of internal flexibilisation (regarding working time, pay, and job boundaries and workplaces) appear to be more pervasive. This raises fundamental questions about the meaning of ‘standard’ employment relations in the teaching sector.

Journal of Education Policy