Trainee teachers in unpaid teaching posts: volunteering, risk and vulnerability
Open accessAbstract
This paper explores the experiences and perceptions of a little-known category of in-service trainee teachers in the Further Education (FE) and Skills sector in England: those who meet the practical teaching requirements of their course mainly through unpaid teaching as ‘volunteers’. The paper reports findings from mixed-methods research which used surveys, interviews and focus groups involving trainee teachers within a large FE–HE partnership. Themes relating to motivations to volunteer, the development of teacher identity within marginal roles, and the risks associated with unpaid teaching are discussed. For increasing numbers of trainees, unpaid teaching provides an opportunity for career entry. However, the quality of teaching experience gained is mixed, with some trainees receiving high levels of support, whilst others experience marginalisation and limitations on their developing teacher identities. The paper highlights the specific challenges to professionalism posed by unpaid teaching within the FE and Skills sector, and relates these challenges to a broader context of insecurity and risk. As work experience becomes an increasingly valuable commodity, this paper illustrates the pressures individuals face as they exchange payment and security for the opportunities volunteering provides.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Themes of change and transition tended to be situated within broader conceptualisations of conflict and tension, including risks and vulnerabilities experienced by individuals.
“Themes of change and transition tended to be situated within broader conceptualisations of conflict and tension, including risks and vulnerabilities experienced by individuals (Thompson & Russell, 2017).”
From Understanding teacher identity in teachers' professional lives: A systematic review of the literature (2023) · cites this paper as Thompson & Russell, 2017
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511815355 · Cited by 33,219 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 29
- Avis, J. 2007. Education, Policy and Social Justice: Learning and skills . London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
- Avis, J. 2009. Further education: policy hysteria, competitiveness and performativity. British Journal of Sociology of Education , 30(5): 653-662.
- Avis, J., R. Fisher, and R. Thompson. 2015. Teaching in Lifelong Learning: A guide to theory and practice . Maidenhead: Open University Press.
- Avis, J. and K. Orr. 2016. HE in FE: Vocationalism, class and social justice. Research in Post-Compulsory Education , 21(1-2): 49-65.
- Bathmaker, A-M., and J. Avis. 2005. Becoming a lecturer in further education in England: The construction of professional identity and the role of communities of practice. Journal of Education for Teaching , 31(1): 47-62.
- Bathmaker, A-M. and J. Avis. 2013. Inbound, outbound or peripheral: the impact of discourses of 'organisational' professionalism on becoming a teacher in English further education. Discourse , 34(5): 731-748.
- Bauman, Z. 1988. Freedom . Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
- Charteris, J., K. Jenkins, M. Bannister-Tyrell and M. Jones (2017) Structural marginalisation, othering and casual relief teacher subjectivities. Critical Studies in Education , 58(1): 104119.
- Fisher, R. and R. Simmons. 2012. Liberal conservatism, vocationalism and further education in England. Globalisation, Societies and Education , 10(1): 31-51.
- Giddens, A. 1991. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and society in the late modern age . Cambridge: Polity.
- Gleeson, D., J. Davies, and E. Wheeler. 2005. On the making and taking of professionalism in the further education workplace. British Journal of Sociology of Education 26(4): 445-460.
- Gleeson, D. and D. James. 2007. The paradox of professionalism in English further education: a TLC project perspective. Educational Review 59(4): 451-467.
- Hodkinson, P., G. Biesta, and D. James, 2008. Understanding learning culturally: overcoming the dualism between social and individual views of learning. Vocations and Learning , 1(1): 27-47.
- Hulme, M., and I. Menter. 2014. New professionalism in austere times: The employment experiences of early career teachers in Scotland. Teachers and Teaching , 20 (6): 672-687.
- Hustinx, L., F. Handy, R. Cnaan, J. Brudney, A. Pessi, and N. Yamauchi. 2010. Social and cultural origins of motivations to volunteer: a comparison of university students in six countries. International Sociology , 25(3): 349-382.
- Jameson, J. and Y. Hillier. 2008. 'Nothing will prevent me from doing a good job'. The professionalisation of part-time teaching staff in further and adult education. Research in Post-Compulsory Education , 13(1): 39-53.
- Korhonen, V. and S. Törmä. 2016. Engagement with a teaching career - how a group of Finnish university teachers experience teacher identity and professional growth. Journal of Further and Higher Education , 40(1): 65-82.
- Lucas, N. and N. Crowther. 2016. The logic of the Incorporation of further education colleges in England 1993-2015: towards an understanding of marketisation, change and instability. Journal of Education Policy , 31:5, 583-597
- Mather, K., L. Worrall and R. Seifert. 2007. Reforming further education: the changing labour process for college lecturers. Personnel Review , 36(1): 109-127.
- Morrison, M. 1999. Temps in teaching: the role of private employment agencies in a changing labour market for teachers. Journal of Education Policy, 14: 167-184.
- Orr, K. 2012. Coping, confidence and alienation: the early experience of trainee teachers in English FE. Journal of Education for Teaching , 38(1): 51-65.
- Pollock, K. 2010. Marginalization and the occasional teacher workforce in Ontario: the case of internationally educated teachers (IETs). Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy , 100.
- Pearce, J. and K. Pollock. 2012. Informal learning and volunteering: the case of an unemployed certified teacher in Ontario. Learning Landscapes , 5(2): 237-50.
- Richardson, W. 2007. In search of the further education of young people in post -war England. Journal of Vocational Education and Training , 59(3): 385-418.
- Robinson, D. and S. Rennie. 2012. Volunteer teachers: testing the professionalisation agenda in the lifelong learning sector . Journal of Further and Higher Education , 38(4): 501522.
- Shain, F. and D. Gleeson. 1999. Under new management: changing conceptions of teacher professionalism and policy in the further education sector. Journal of Education Policy , 14(4): 445-462.
- Simmons, R. and R. Thompson. 2007. Aiming higher: how will universities respond to changes in initial teacher training for the post-compulsory sector in England? Journal of Further and Higher Education , 31(2): 171-82.
- Thompson, R. and D. Robinson. 2008. Changing step or marking time? Teacher education reforms for the learning and skills sector. Journal of Further and Higher Education , 32(2): 161-173.
- Wenger, E. 1999. Communities of Practice: Learning, meaning and iden tity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Rushton, E. A. C., Rawlings Smith, E., Steadman, S., & Towers, E. (2023) · Review of Education · doi:10.1002/rev3.3417 · Cited by 156 · see citing works
- Authors
- Thompson, R., & Russell, L.
- Affiliations
- University of Huddersfield (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Thompson, Ron
- Venue
- Journal of Vocational Education & Training
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2017-05-03
- Volume
- 69
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 637-654
- ISSN
- 1363-6820 (ISSN-L)
- 1747-5090
- OpenAlex
- W2610833479
- Cited by
- 6
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2024: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 1.95
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- eprints.hud.ac.uk
- Licence
- other-oa
- Locations
- Journal of Vocational Education and Training (publishedVersion)
- University of Huddersfield Repository (University of Huddersfield) (acceptedVersion)
- Huddersfield Research Portal (University of Huddersfield) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Education and Training Consortium (N/A)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Education Systems and Policy
- Social Sciences › Education › Teacher Professional Development and Motivation
- Social Sciences › Education › Teacher Education and Leadership Studies
- Keywords
- pre-service teachers, volunteering, further education, teacher identity, teacher professionalism, risk and vulnerability, work experience, career entry, teacher professional development
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
