Compulsory redeployment and the impact on teacher self and identity : a qualitative study of thirteen teachers

This study examines the impact of compulsory redeployment, as a result of middle school closures, upon the teacher self and teacher identities of one group of thirteen teachers who were compulsorily redeployed from six middle schools to one secondary school in a town in the Midlands of the UK. A qualitative study was planned to follow the redeployed teachers during their first year at their new school - from September 2004 to July 2005. The teachers’ progress was charted, by way of semi-structured interviews and diaries, at three stages throughout the changeover year, and in so doing used three research questions to collect, analyse and interpret the data. The data were analysed by means of analytical methods associated with Grounded Theory. The study identifies three distinct groups of teachers from the data - ‘the pragmatists’, ‘the enthusiasts’ and ‘the disillusioned’. The ‘pragmatists’ were pragmatic and philosophical about the position they found themselves in and, despite experiencing an initial negative impact upon their professional identities, worked to become increasingly positive throughout the year; the ‘enthusiasts’ experienced a positive impact upon their professional identities and very quickly turned a challenging situation into a positive opportunity career-wise; whereas for the ‘disillusioned’ teachers, the process of school closure and their subsequent redeployment was a difficult and painful process which had a profoundly negative impact upon the teacher self and their professional identities. This study informs the literature on ‘educational change’, specifically compulsory redeployment.