Raising the social status of teachers: teachers as social entrepreneurs

Abstract

AbstractIn Australia, concerningly high levels of teacher attrition, and subsequent teacher shortages, have led to calls for improvement in the social status of teachers. In response, this study explored what draws pre-service teachers to the teaching profession in the face of research and media reports that suggest teaching is perceived as a low-status career. Using mixed methods, we surveyed 387 Australian pre-service teachers and found that their primary motivations for entering the teaching profession corresponded with the motivations attributed to social entrepreneurs who use innovation to make positive social change for their constituents. As far as the authors know, this is the first time that a close alignment between pre-service teachers’ motivations for entering the teaching profession and social entrepreneurs’ behaviours and intentions has been demonstrated. Thus, this study makes a unique contribution in the field of initial teacher education. We suggest that explicitly recognising teachers as social entrepreneurs with the inherent capacity to generate social innovation has the potential to raise the status of the profession. Such recognition could also positively inform pre-service teacher recruitment and teacher retention.