Conceiving policy context as living dialogic threads: a study of the influences of voices from policy context on Early Career Teachers’ professionalism and attrition

Quirk-Marku, Catharine Joanna (2024) Conceiving policy context as living dialogic threads: a study of the influences of voices from policy context on Early Career Teachers’ professionalism and attrition. Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

This study offers an insight into the influence of policy context on ten Early Career Teachers’ (ECTs’) professionalism and attrition. It foregrounds the ECTs’ lived experiences during a three-year longitudinal study, throughout their Initial Teacher Training course and their first two years as qualified teachers. Bakhtin's tenet of dialogism is at the heart of this thesis and is put to use in this study in analysing the contested notion of professionalism. During the study a series of semi-structured interviews and classroom observations were undertaken as well as document analysis of teaching resources that the ECTs had created. The study illustrates the insight that is offered by a longitudinal study that is rooted in dialogism and draws together these different data sets. It makes two original contributions to research: constructing a dialogical approach to analysing teaching resources which has not previously been included in dialogical research and analysis; and applying the principles of dialogism to analyse how different secondary (ideological) speech genres operate. This study reveals how the ECTs’ professionalism was shaped by national professionalism and identified centripetal vehicles that were employed to embed the policy context of national professionalism. It reveals contrasting experiences of national professionalism where some of the ECTs experienced a context that encouraged features of democratic professionalism. This study also shows how the professionalism of other ECTs, within a Multi-Academy Trust (MAT), was significantly shaped and restricted by a multi-faceted policy context which created a form of branded professionalism. Given that MATs in England vary considerably, further research should investigate the policy context of other MATs and its influence on ECTs’ professionalism and attrition. Additionally, further research should be conducted by a researcher who has a limited knowledge of this educational context to address issues of addressivity and to further unravel accepted and pervasive norms and values. This study also found that policies that focus on the ECTs’ performativity were a cause of significant anxiety, pressure, and workload, particularly during the ITT course. This was a cause of attrition for one ECT. It recommends that policy context is viewed collectively so that the cumulative effects of policy are understood. This study prompts policy makers to review whether the performativity expectations on the ECT are realistic and to reflect on the influences of this policy context on the ECTs’ lived experiences and attrition.