Teachers who stay: the role of professional identity in teacher retention

Drawing on interviews with mid- and later-career teachers from primary and secondary schools in one region of England, this small-scale study examined why participants had chosen to stay. They described how their moral purpose and agency helped them manage multiple challenges over time, and how these had contributed to their sense of professional identity and decisions to stay. The study supports existing research identifying professional identity as a key element of teachers' professionalism, and finds that the strength and stability of identity fluctuates as teachers navigate changes in their lives, classrooms, school cultures, and social and policy contexts. These fluctuations and their consequences were associated with teachers’ capacity to manage the dynamic interplay of these influences over time. Moral purpose and values-informed agency were important resources that enabled teachers to retain, reclaim, or reconceive their professional identities over time.