Exploring Teacher Attrition, through the Lens of Resilience: A Qualitative Study

The relative importance of resilience continues to draw attention from writers and academics across the globe. Indeed, the influence of resilience has emerged to become a panacea for organisational and employee concerns. This thesis explores the problem of high teacher attrition and investigates the role of individual teacher resilience as a solution for reversing this unwanted trend. Despite a wealth of research surrounding high teacher attrition and several government initiatives aimed at overcoming the enigma, the latest data from the Department for Education reports that teacher attrition, excluding retirement, in England, is at the highest point in a decade. The influence of high teacher attrition impacts society, as the continuity for the learning of the future workforce faces disruption, and this disruption can impede pupil academic achievement. Therefore, a solution to high teacher attrition is essential and teacher resilience could provide the answer. This thesis adopts an interpretative epistemology to explore the conundrum of high teacher attrition and to investigate the relevance of teacher resilience as a panacea to lower the rate of teachers quitting the profession. Semi-structured interviews were conducted on 28 participants, who were either classroom teachers, members of school leadership teams or teacher union representatives. Data was analysed adopting a thematic approach. Resilience was found to have importance when considering potential policies and initiatives that could reverse the trend of high teacher attrition. However, more than adopting teacher training programmes to build resilience, it is of greater importance to establish a school culture that nurtures teacher resilience. This thesis found that high teacher attrition is the consequence of micro-management that imposes a workplace culture which generates teacher disillusionment and the consequential erosion of individual teacher resilience.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

PhD

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

De Montfort University

Year dc:date.issued

2024

Author dc:creator

• Miller, Elizabeth

Licence

• https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/bitstreams/5664969c-38f9-467d-9018-336ab7bce7ea/download