This study explored the perspectives of primary principals, as they consider the prospect of employing new teachers with a 'specialisation' in mathematics. Structured interviews were conducted with six NSW principals across school sectors. Analysis of the data revealed the nature of 'specialist' roles in a school depended heavily on current…

Isolation, organisational pressures, and role-related distress, can result in teachers, particularly early career teachers (ECTs), experiencing greater risk of burnout. For many ECTs, a lack of practical strategies for dealing with these conditions contributes to this. Using self-study methodology, this research unpacks why ECTs experience…

This paper reveals how the art device of trompe l'oeil provided a way of thinking about the induction and mentoring experiences of seven beginning teachers in secondary school settings in the state of Victoria, Australia. The research study--a phenomenological, narrative inquiry--drew on Bourdieu's theorising of "misrecognition" and…

Although induction programmes are widely held to alleviate the pressures beginning teachers face early in their careers, what happens when beginning teachers do not receive adequate induction? While the research advocates effective and ongoing induction to acculturate new teachers to their careers, there is little research on the effects of…

In 2014 "almost 80% of all government school teachers in Australia in their first 5 years of their teaching careers were on short-term contracts." This paper will consider how the short-term contract governs early career teachers in Australia, and more broadly, how neo-liberal governance works on and through institutions and individuals.…

This article examines how early career teachers, participants in a research project, make sense of their experiences through storytelling. The teachers' stories provide a significant counterpoint to the way standards-based reforms construct their professional development, prompting us as teacher educators to think again about what it means for our…

This article reports on a study of teacher and principal attitudes to newly mandated teacher standards in Australia. The qualitative study of 36 teachers and principals was conducted over 12 months as the new educators in five schools completed a mandatory teacher probation process framed by the teacher standards. The study found positive…

Little is known about beginning teachers' political positioning experiences of the staffroom. This paper employs Bourdieu's conceptual tools of field, habitus and capital to explore beginning health and physical education teachers' positioning experiences and learning in staffrooms, the place in which teachers spend the majority of their…

Teacher education is a hotly debated policy area in higher education and schooling portfolios, with increasing emphasis on standards and accountability. It is in this environment that "The Standards Project" (2013-2015) presented in this article began. It has at its core a three-part commitment: first, to undertake a comprehensive audit…

Individual telephone interviews with 11 Australian beginning teachers who were newly appointed, or seeking a teaching position, were used to explore their perceptions of their preparation to teach early reading. Interviewees provided self-ratings of preparedness and ability to teach early reading, information about their knowledge of early reading…

Teachers need to know a great deal, in many areas and in multiple ways. Teacher knowledge is a complex tapestry, and teachers must successfully weave the multiple threads. In this article, I present a conceptualisation of teacher knowledge that provides a framework for describing the complexity of teacher knowledge. The framework describes three…

Despite reported shortages of teachers world-wide, around 50% of teacher education students do not establish themselves in the teaching profession. It is therefore important to confirm the career pathways these students undertake and that teacher education degrees are of benefit to them throughout their career. This paper describes the method used…

This article takes up questions about knowledge and the school curriculum with respect to literary studies within subject English. Its intention is to focus on literary studies in English from the context of current waves of curriculum reform, rather than as part of the conversations primarily within the field of English, to raise questions about…

Many early-career teachers (ECTs) begin their teaching careers in rural and remote schools in Australia, and do not stay long, with consequences for their own lives, and for their students, schools and communities. By understanding how first-year ECTs navigate personal (subjective) and contextual (objective) conditions, opportunities to disrupt…

Engaging in informal activities, like conversations with colleagues, is one way that professionals can learn within workplace contexts. Informal conversations present opportunities for academics to learn about teaching. The current study investigated academics' experience of informal conversations, and their experience of the relations between…