Choosing to Teach: Reflections on Gender and Social Change

Abstract

This study uses data from a 10-year longitudinal study to explore how women graduates of a liberal arts college experience the gendered construction of teachers and teaching as they make life and career choices. These women respond to the expectations and pressures of families and teachers, renegotiate their own definitions of success and achievement, and reconstruct definitions of teaching and themselves as teachers. Despite their understanding of the status of other possible career choices, and their resistance of gendered frameworks of career and success, the women in this study ignore the rhetoric of teacher professionalization that might provide them with an alternative definition of teaching. Instead, they reframe teaching as a political act, one through which they can address issues of social inequality and social injustice.

Seeking Time Within Time: Exploring the temporal constraints of women teachers’ experiences as graduate students and novice researchers

“…The findings of this study affirm earlier studies in how Ece, Damla, and Eda felt engaging in research was rewarding and intellectually stimulating (Vrijnsen-de Cortea et al, 2013), enabled them to think critically about the contexts in which research is conducted (Hagevik, Aydeniz, & Rowell, 2012;Rust & Meyers, 2006), and highlighted their critical awareness of teaching as a gendered profession (Mitton Kukner, 2013;Sarı, 2012;Smulyan, 2004). Upon completion of their studies, Ece, Damla, and Eda described themselves as empowered in response to conducting research (McGlinn Manfra, 2009;Zeichner, 2003).…”

Finding their way on: Career decision‐making processes of urban science teachers

“…Some studies take an alternate approach, following teachers' career moves over time and allowing the complexities of decision making to emerge. Smulyan (2004) followed her former teacher education students over a period of 10 years in an effort to better understand how they constructed the profession of teaching. Likewise, Quartz et al (2008) followed their graduates of a specialized urban teacher preparation program for 6 years and found not only attrition and retention but frequent role changing as well.…”

“…Although these studies move toward the consideration of decision making as a process, both maintain a focus on related factors. Smulyan (2004) looks at teachers' prior social, familial, and educational experiences, whereas Quartz et al (2008) examine patterns related to race/ethnicity, gender, credential type, and age.…”

Emerging Critical Literacy in Teachers as Novice Researchers

“…My intention in this paper is to show how being engaged in research brought not only benefits and challenges for this group of university language instructors, but also highlighted their emerging critical literacy and awareness of teaching as a gendered profession (Smulyan, 2004).…”

“…The work of Lewison et al informed my analysis of participants' experiences and drew my attention to how participants' learning occurred at pivotal moments over the course of conducting research studies, moments at which articulated tensions and turning points provided participants with windows of inquiry into self and place, particularly when their understanding of themselves and their careers bumped into the gendered expectations of others (Smulyan, 2004;Sari, 2012;Cin & Walker, in press). …”