The Role of School-Based Colleagues in Shaping the Commitment of Novice Special and General Education Teachers

TLDR

The study compares how beginning special and general education teachers access school-based colleagues. The findings show that colleague relationships and school norms are critical for novice teachers, with perceived support strongly predicting retention for special educators, and recommend fostering productive relationships and tailored induction support.

Abstract

We compare beginning special and general education teachers’ access to school-based colleagues. Our findings demonstrate that colleague relationships are critical for the experiences of beginning teachers, as are the school organizational norms that these beginning teachers experience. For special education teachers in particular, perception of colleague support was a strong predictor of retention plans. Similar results were seen with respect to their perception of the level of collective responsibility among the faculty. Taken together, these results suggest that schools and districts should make efforts to facilitate productive relationships between general and special education faculty, as well as to differentiate induction support for beginning special educators.