Interpretative Repertoires of Resilience Among Beginning Teachers in Chile

In this study, we analyze how beginning teachers in Chile construct meanings around resilience during their first year of professional induction, within a context of intensified teachers’ work and limited institutional support. Drawing on a socioecological perspective and Critical Discursive Psychology, we developed a qualitative design focused on interpretative repertoires. Ten beginning teachers from various subject areas, educational levels, and regions participated, with each being interviewed at two time points, six months apart. Through an abductive analysis, we identified three affective–discursive repertoires. The first construct enters the profession as a generational tension, in which innovation is associated with youth, while, simultaneously, beginning teachers are delegitimized by school hierarchies. The second organizes care as an identity core that offers relational gratification but also leads to exhaustion in the face of vulnerable contexts and overwhelming demands. The third articulates a heroic subjectivity that keeps the school running through overexertion in response to a “ghostly” institution that evaluates and demands but does not provide accompaniment. Taken together, our findings show that resilience is produced as a situated, relational practice, emerging more in spite of institutions than because of them. We discuss the implications for induction policies and intergenerational mentoring, as well as for strengthening the material and collective conditions of teacher care. These may help improve early-career teacher retention and well-being.