Open AccessReverberations of a Previous Career as Reflected in Personal Blogs of Career Switchers into Teaching
Author(s) -
Smadar Bar-Tal,
Liat Biberman-Shalev
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
international education studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1913-9039
pISSN - 1913-9020
DOI - 10.5539/ies.v15n2p172
Subject(s) - psychology , socialization , career development , pedagogy , qualitative research , cognitive information processing , professional development , sociology , social psychology , social science
Those who choose teaching as a second career bring with them a “dowry” from their former career including: work experience, distinctive organizational culture, professional knowledge, competences and skills, and experience working under managers. These skills and competences may play a distinctive role in the professional socialization process of second career teachers. Qualitative research was used to perform content analysis of 1,298 reflective blogs’ posts written by 98 second career teachers during their first year of teaching in secondary education in Israel. The findings yielded two main themes: (1) Reverberations of the former career in the second career including two sub-categories: (a) Former career as a teaching benefactor and (b) Former career as a hindrance to successful shift to teaching; and (2) Expressions of parenting as a former career. The discussion section presents some practical implication for teacher educators and high-schools’ principals for a quality professional integration of second career teachers in to teaching.