Conference Agenda

Existing research on teacher attrition and retention primarily focuses on teachers’ reasons for leaving the profession (Perrachione & Rosser 2008, Shields & Mullen 2020) apparently on the assumption that knowledge of reasons for dropout creates basis for insights into retention by reversing the signs. However, teacher attrition and teacher retention are not necessarily the opposite ends of a unidimensional construct. From a developmental perspective it is arguably more constructive – conceptually and educationally – to draw attention to what keep teachers in the profession rather than their reasons for leaving.

In this symposium we will examine teachers’ reasons for staying in the profession with particular focus on teachers in public primary and secondary schools. The conceptualization of the field goes beyond the physical retention of teachers because, as Johnson and her colleagues (2005) have argued, quite rightly, that student learning needs to be the ‘worthy goal’ of teacher retention. Drawing on empirical research from a diverse range of theoretical, conceptual, methodological and disciplinary backgrounds and educational contexts, the symposium contributes to an incipient research interest in exploring why teachers stay and what schools and education systems can do to keep committed and passionate teachers for the education of all students. The scientific ambition is to create a research-informed knowledge foundation for working proactively with the problem, rather than reactively, thereby shifting the approach from prevention to a more positive discourse in relation to the teaching profession.

We will likewise focus on the concept of retention as its conceptual underpinnings remain largely unexplored and is often reduced to being the opposite of attrition. Thus, it is also an aim with the symposium to expose the concept of retention by exploring and challenging its conceptual foundation(s).

Submission had to be withdrawn.

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Teacher retention is a critical international problem threatening educational quality and stability. This article argues that the efficacy of retention strategies is fundamentally shaped by their often-implicit assumptions about the nature of teachers' work and the levers for retention. Through a critical comparative policy analysis, we contrast two distinct paradigms: England’s centralized ‘Re-ducing Teacher Workload’ policy, a top-down intervention predicated on the assumption of reten-tion as a function of quantitative task reduction, and a decentralized Dutch initiative in Amster-dam, a bottom-up strategy designed to strengthen retention by fostering professional agency and growth. Analysing both through the theoretical lenses of Self-Determination Theory and the Teacher Retention Balance Model reveals a central steering paradox. The English policy’s stand-ardized, prescriptive method systematically thwarted teacher autonomy, thereby limiting its suc-cess and contributing to persistently high attrition. Conversely, the Amsterdam approach, by align-ing its methods with core psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, achieved statistically significant gains in job satisfaction and self-efficacy – notably without reduc-ing overall workload. However, this strengths-based model also revealed inherent challenges of de-centralized governance, which ultimately constrained its broader scalability and system-wide im-pact. We conclude that sustainable retention requires policies to be consciously designed in con-gruence with established motivational theory, while deliberately navigating the inherent con-straints and trade-offs of their specific governance contexts. Keywords: Teacher retention; self-determination theory; teacher autonomy; workload; policy analysis.

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This paper reports on a literature review on the role of schools’ geographical locations, as a self-evident part of early career teacher (ECT)’s teaching context, in shaping ECTs’ professional experi-ences during the induction phase, in relation to their retention and attrition. Under an interaction-ist theoretical assumption that ECTs’ retention and attrition results from their meaningful interac-tion with the teaching contexts, we analysed 37 empirical studies (published between 2013 – 2025). The analysis resulted in an overview of the most important findings and more in particular in the construction of a model of Geographical embeddedness of schools. The model identifies and encompasses four interrelated aspects of this embeddedness: Physical, Sociocultural, Socio-economic, and Policy. The contribution of the study is two-fold: to add nuances and further in-sights into ECTs’ motivation behind making decisions to stay or to leave the profession and to call for moving beyond the existing deficit views imposed upon both urban and rural school settings. Keywords: Teacher induction, geographical perspective, retention/attrition

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