Challenges to teacher resilience: conditions count

TLDR

This study builds on a four‑year national survey of English teachers, noting that resilience is not innate or stable but is essential for sustaining educational purpose amid uncertainties, and that teachers’ resilience fluctuates with personal, relational, and organisational contexts. The paper seeks to provide empirical evidence on the importance of teacher resilience by analysing data from the national project. Teachers view resilience as a dynamic, multifaceted capacity beyond surviving adversity, and the results suggest implications for professional development, school leadership, and teacher retention.

Abstract

Drawing upon findings of a four‐year national research project on variations in the work and lives of teachers in England, this paper provides empirical evidence which contributes to understandings about the importance of resilience in teachers' work. The experience of resilience as perceived by teachers in this research was that it was neither innate nor stable and was much more than a capacity to survive and thrive in extremely adverse circumstances. Rather, it was perceived as being closely allied to their everyday capacity to sustain their educational purposes and successfully manage the unavoidable uncertainties which are inherent in the practice of being a teacher. Their capacity to be resilient fluctuated as a result of the influences of the personal, relational and organisational settings in which they worked. The findings have implications for initial and in‐service professional development programmes, school leadership and the quality retention of teachers.