Annelies Kassenberg

De ervaringen van beginnende en ervaren leerkrachten in het contact met ouders

Beginning teachers struggle during their first years, which is shown in the number of beginning teachers that leave the profession. 25 percent leaves within five years. This is worrying, as there is a lack of teachers. Beginning teachers experience multiple problems, such as high workload. Which is largely caused by parent teacher contact. In this study, the relation between the amount of work experience in primary education, and the positive or negative experiences with parent teacher contact is studied. Interviews with primary school teachers from six elementary schools in the Northern part of the Netherlands are conducted by the method of storytelling, which is a form of narrative inquiry. Ten beginning teachers and ten experienced teachers were selected. Through these interviews, multiple stories were found, which were coded inductively and deductively. Content analysis showed some differences between beginning and experienced teachers. Beginning teachers seem to feel more insecure than experienced teachers, caused by their lack of experience and having no children themselves. Thereby, beginning teachers feel less appreciated by parents than experienced teachers do. However, similarities between beginning and experienced teachers are many times as large as the differences. Beginning and experienced teachers have the same ideas about cooperating with parents. Both see a decrease of teacher authority and an increase of critical parent attitude. Both experience many support of their colleagues or coach at work.