Susan Beltman

‘I’m coming back again!’ The resilience process of early career teachers

Early career teachers face a range of challenges in their first years of teaching and how these challenges are managed as career implications. Based on current literature, this paper presents a model of early career teacher resilience where resilience is seen as a process located at the interface of personal and contextual challenges and resources. Through a semi-structured interview the challenges faced by 13 Australian early career teachers and the resources available to manage these challenges are examined. Findings show that beginning teachers experience multiple, varied and ongoing challenges and that personal and contextual resources are both important in sustaining them through the beginning year(s) of their teaching careers. The study emphasises the critical roles played by family and friends and the importance of relationships in the resilience process. Implications for future research and teacher education are discussed.

Mentoring and the Development of Resilience: An Australian Perspective

The purpose of this paper is to examine the connections between mentoring and resilience. Theory and research support the notion that a mentoring relationship between an adult and a young person can contribute to the development of resilience and socio-emotional well-being. Mentoring provides a context for young people to develop key protective factors, such as relationships with caring adults, networks with peers and others, and individual competencies. Evidence is provided from international research literature and a cross-case analysis of a range of Australian mentoring programs with young people in various school and community settings. Mentors ranged from senior citizens to adolescents working with younger peers. Programs focused on young people with a variety of characteristics, from those showing particular talent to those regarded as high-risk, as well as those from diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Despite providing an opportunity for successful intervention and prevention, such programs do not offer a ‘quick fix’, and require careful consideration of a range of issues. Successful programs have mentors with caring qualities, provide opportunities for network development, and implement strategies for developing individual competencies according to individual needs and interests.

Quietly sharing the load? The role of school psychologists in enabling teacher resilience

Teacher resilience is associated with positive student outcomes and plays an important role in teacher retention and well-being. School ecologies can enable the resilience of teachers, with prior research illustrating the importance of supportive colleagues, strong leadership, and positive school culture. There is limited research, however, exploring the role of school psychologists in supporting or enabling teacher resilience. Using data from experienced Australian school psychologists and teachers, this exploratory qualitative study examines the role of school psychologists in enabling teacher resilience. Findings show that school psychologists directly and indirectly support teacher resilience, although teachers perceive school psychologists’ main role as work with individual students. Issues pertaining to variations in access and particular roles of school psychologists are discussed. Although further research is needed to clarify and promote the role of school psychologists, this study points to them potentially playing an important role in school ecologies that enable teacher resilience.

Great Southern Lands: Making Space for Teacher Resilience in South Africa and Australia

Teacher resilience is an issue of international concern, yet few cross-national studies exist. This chapter examines teacher resilience in two postcolonial, economically disparate, Southern hemisphere contexts: South Africa and Australia. Data from studies in each country are examined to investigate the nature of risks and resources to support teacher resilience in each context. A conceptual model is developed to illustrate how the ecologies in these two countries differ with regard to the specific adversities teachers face, as well as protective resources available to teachers to buffer against such risk. Findings show that irrespective of context, certain teacher personal resources (optimism, perseverance, motivation) and adaptive coping strategies (relational support, problem-solving) remain similar across dissimilar contexts. In addition, whilst the broad origin of the risks was similar, how these were manifested differed in each context due to broader socio-economic conditions. Implications for further research, teacher preparation and professional development are discussed.

Classroom Ready? Building Resilience in Teacher Education

This chapter discusses how an innovative online learning resource designed to support pre-service teachers in building capacity for professional resilience can also support the development of “classroom ready” teachers. The process of developing the Building Resilience in Teacher Education (BRiTE) resource is explained and results from an evaluation with key stakeholders presented. Findings regarding the content and online design of the resource were positive and confirmed the usefulness and relevance of the resource for pre-service teachers and in teacher education programs. It is argued that a resilience-focused approach to developing non-academic key capabilities is efficacious. Through the development of a resource that is personalised, interactive, connected to the profession and grounded in the literature, the BRiTE resource may complement teacher education experiences and have the potential to support not only pre-service teachers and teacher educators, but also practising teachers.

Using Online Modules to Build Capacity for Teacher Resilience

Teacher resilience is regarded as a complex, multidimensional, dynamic construct. Enhancing teacher resilience can potentially increase teacher commitment, yet interventions to build resilience in pre-service programmes are scarce. This chapter examines the effectiveness of the BRiTE (Building Resilience in Teacher Education) online modules to develop pre-service teachers’ capacity for resilience in Australia. The modules are briefly described. Perceptions of 146 final year pre-service teachers were gathered regarding resilience, self-efficacy, commitment and coping before completing the BRiTE modules and their final professional experience school placement. Both pre- and post-school placement measures were completed by 49 participants. To determine the impact of using the modules, matched data sets were divided with “users” (n = 32) scoring significantly higher scores than “non-users” (n = 17) on five post-placement survey scales. Despite some limitations, there was an indication that using the online modules assisted pre-service teachers develop their capacity for resilience. Adapting the modules for use with in-service teachers and other professionals is an avenue for future research. This study has significance, given the importance of teacher professional resilience, and suggests that interventions developed for pre-service contexts can make a difference.

Pathways to resilience: how drawings reveal pre-service teachers’ core narratives underpinning their future teacher-selves

ABSTRACT For this study of teacher-identity, which is part of a larger research project on teacher resilience, preservice teachers were invited to draw “the kind of teacher you hope to become”. In this, our study recognises drawing as a semiotic system of meaning-making and communication. The drawings were examined in terms of the “stories” they told. Using an emergent design approach to the data, drawings were synthesised into categories that were distilled into theme clusters. A hermeneutic reading revealed the core identity narrative underpinning each teacher-identity story. This story was told in sociocultural terms, or constructed around functioning at work or couched in terms of personal validation and achievement. These core identity narratives signal what “matters” to preservice teachers’ sense of their teacher-selves. Since there is an observed correlation between teacher-identity and resilience, knowing what matters is a helpful basis for building resilience.

Resilience in Education: An Introduction

This volume has arisen from burgeoning international interest in the field of resilience in a variety of educational contexts. It gathers together current thinking, research and practice from international scholars. Over the past 10 years in particular, researchers have focused not only on resilience in significant adversity but also on how students and educators overcome everyday challenges to learn and thrive. The increasing interest in resilience in educational contexts has, in part, stemmed from an increased societal attention to issues of wellbeing and mental health and to broader concerns about issues such as teacher quality and retention in some countries. As a result, both individual researchers and research groups have emerged, making significant contributions to understanding resilience in educational contexts through theory development and empirical studies.

Beginning teacher resilience in remote Australia: a place-based perspective

ABSTRACT Enhancing resilience is key to reducing teacher attrition and addressing the challenges of the profession but scant research exists on resilience in regional and remote settings, where there is a shortage of quality, specialist and lead teachers. The aim of this study was to combine ecological and relational perspectives on resilience to examine pre-service and early career teacher resilience in the remote context of central Australia. The findings suggest that beginning teacher resilience in central Australia involves a particular set of enablers and constraints which are characterised by teachers’ capacity to build connections to place, connections as a learner and connections in relationships. A transactional systems model is presented that articulates the dynamism of the resilience processes and offers a way to better understand the ecological interdependencies unique to a particular context and culture. This understanding will enable teachers, initial teacher educators, school leaders and policy makers to better address the challenges facing this profession.

Taking care of youth mentoring relationships: red flags, repair, and respectful resolution

Abstract Mentoring is portrayed in the literature as benefiting young people, but ineffective or early termination of youth mentoring relationships can be detrimental. Researchers have not adequately explored issues surrounding the breakdown of youth mentoring relationships. Underpinned by a socio-ecological perspective, in this exploratory study we consider the various contexts within which these important relationships exist and identify early warning signs or red flags that a mentoring relationship is struggling. We interviewed mentees, mentors, and coordinators from four Western Australian youth mentoring programs about their experiences of mentoring relationships. Our findings suggest that red flags and repair strategies may be specific to particular programs, and that program coordinators play an important role in supporting relationships. Our research will help youth mentoring programs work toward early intervention strategies or appropriate and respectful termination of a relationship.