Dr Emily MacLeod

Why do people enter and exit teaching? New analyses from @ambitioninstitute.bsky.social with @drsamsims.bsky.social report that professional development, flexible working and additional paid leave could be as valuable as pay rises for reducing teacher shortages www.ambition.org.uk/why-people-e...

<em>British Educational Research Journal</em> | BERA Journal | Wiley Online Library This paper uses empirical data from a longitudinal qualitative study conducted with aspirant teachers in England to propose (re)definitions of the concepts of ‘status’ and ‘safety’ as a framework wit...

You can read the full open-access paper here: bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... (11/11)

Importantly, this paper demonstrates that the reasons why young people do not pursue teaching are not the same reasons why people leave the profession

🚫 i.e., we should not always group teacher recruitment and retention together, they are not caused by the same issues (10/11)

This raises questions about how we can raise the status and safety of teaching for all... (9/11)

The framework shows that the reasons why people want to become teachers go beyond their individual desires (e.g., wanting to work with children), and include how potential teachers see themselves, and are seen by others, in relation to teaching (8/11)

In this framework I propose that status and safety are relative to a person's background and/or the social and cultural inequities that they experience.

e.g. teaching is not 'low in status' for everyone, at all times ‼️(7/11)

Using these analyses I propose a new framework of status and safety with which to examine why some people become teachers, whilst others do not:

*teacher-makers and teacher-breakers* (6/11)

Those who chose to pursue teaching by age 22 maintained or returned to teaching as both high in status and safety

Those who dropped their teaching aspirations lost the relative status and/or safety of teaching (5/11)

I found that teaching was seen as a profession which afforded both respect (status) and minimal risk (safety) by all aspirant teachers in this study

But that these perceptions shifted over time - status and status can be lost and gained (4/11)

In the paper I present analyses of qualitative data from interviews tracking aspirant teachers in England over 11 years 👶➡️🧑 (3/11)

This paper is part of a special issue focusing on teacher shortages and ways forward for policy, research and practice in teacher supply

Thanks to Beng Huat See, Gemma Moss, Robert Klassen, Mark Ledger, Sophie Thompson-Lee & Rebecca Snell for the opportunity (2/11)

*What makes or breaks teaching for young people?*

I have a new open-access paper out in @berj-2025.bsky.social bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Teacher-makers and teacher-breakers: (Re)defining how status and safety influence trajectories into and away from teaching

🧵(1/11)

A systematic review of STEM teacher recruitment and retention interventions - International Journal of STEM Education The worldwide problem of teacher recruitment and retention is particularly pronounced in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) subjects, due in part to a lack of trainee teachers an...

A great new paper out from Sophie Thompson-Lee & colleagues evidencing that financial incentives are not effective in recruiting more STEM teachers

Teacher recruitment efforts need to focus on more than just 💰

stemeducationjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10....

McGill University in the sunshine

Today marks my one year anniversary at @mcgill.ca ☀️

That One Teacher: We hear from teachers who positively impacted your life | CBC News Did you have That One Teacher who recognized your potential? Supported you? Had a positive impact on your life? We heard your stories. Now we're sharing them.

Love this piece on the impact of teachers on CBC News 🥰
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

📢 New @beranews.bsky.social blog out today, where I consider the impact of the idea that some teachers are 'born' to teach

www.bera.ac.uk/blog/born-to...

Back home in Montréal after a fantastic time conferencing with my @eserasig5.bsky.social family 😍

... And with a new obsession for Danish ice cream 🍧

@mariobarioberge.bsky.social @betzabetorres-o.bsky.social @allisongonsalves.bsky.social @lucyavraamidou.bsky.social @emilysprowls.bsky.social

This week I'm in wonderful Copenhagen 🇩🇰 with wonderful McGill colleagues for the European Science Education Association conference #ESERA @eserasig5.bsky.social

Finally, we consider what this means for increasing and diversifying teacher recruitment in the context of dire, and patterned, teacher shortages (4/4)

And that teaching is a common back-up, or second-choice career aspiration, but that many individuals who report an earlier interest in teaching do not go on to become teachers (3/4)

We find that girls and young women, as well as young people who identified as White, were significantly more likely to be open to teaching than their peers (2/4)

Screenshot of paper title: Who aspires to become a teacher? Findings from a cohort study tracking young people from age 10/11 to age 21/22

Who Aspires to Become a Teacher? Findings from a Cohort Study Tracking Young People from Age 10/11 to Age 21/22

In this new paper we use survey data from the ASPIRES project to analyse teaching aspirations amongst young people in England (1/4 🧵)

www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/15...

Hi SEEDS family! We are organizing a social meetup at ESERA for SEEDS members on 8.28. It will be a chance to chat and connect with other comrades and gente simpatica. We hope to see you there. For more info and to register login to your SEEDs account: seeds4equity.org/Sys/Login?Re...

On this project I particularly enjoyed speaking with & learning from early years practitioners around the country.

We do not often hear directly from this workforce in education research so it great to have the opportunity to do so on The ONE.

Great to see this report out from the first RCT I worked on with colleagues @randeurope.org & @theeef.bsky.social

We report on the impact of The ONE, a 12 week professional development programme for early years practitioners in England

d2tic4wvo1iusb.cloudfront.net/production/d...

The weather is so wild here! Thankfully it's back to nice and warm today, rather than unbearably hot

🥵

To address teacher shortages we not only need to increase the number of teachers, but consider the barriers that different groups face when considering / entering / in the profession.

It's good to see more data on this! 👏

Ethnic disparities in entry to teacher training, teacher retention and progression to leadership New research, funded by Mission 44, finds that equalising the disparities in progression between applicants and teachers of different ethnic groups would significantly contribute to the Government’s g...

Great to see this new report from @jackworth.bsky.social and colleagues on the ethnic disparities in England's teacher workforce.

www.nfer.ac.uk/publications...

Are you presenting at the ESERA conference this August?

Would you rather not be scrambling to finish your presentation the night before?

Do you enjoy working with supportive colleagues—and being one yourself?