The Professional Life Cycle of Teachers

Abstract

Life-cycle research has been around, to be sure, since philosophers and novelists have been studying lives. The more “scientific” treatment of lives, however, has followed disciplinary tracks, each with its “marker” studies or conceptualizations. For example, there is a clear, psychodynamic track running-from Freud through Henry Murray and Gordon Allport and culminating in Erikson’s eight normative “life-crises”1 and Robert White’s Study of Lives.’ There is another, more sociological, track beginning in recent times with the Chicago School and the revival of the oral history tradition, coupled with the development of symbolic interactionism. Along the way, this school has produced some important studies of adult socialization and career patterning. Still another important influence has stemmed from the multivolume studies of “life-span developmental psychology.“3 The evolution of the life-span series has also reflected the conceptual and methodological shifts the field as a whole has undergone since the 1960s. In particular, the influence of the “organicist” approach has been attenuated. We have come to see that many patterns once attributed to age-related influences are in fact as much or more the result of “cohort” or “period” influences, which means that historical or sociological factors need to be counted more heavily.4 We have also learned that human development beyond adolescence is a far more discontinuous, fluid, dialectical, sometimes downright random business once one begins to look at individual lives. Even those of us who had banked heavily on the organicist approach’ have come to admit that “age” is essentially a hollow variable, a sort of receptacle for the interplay of multiple, differentially powerful determinants. What do we know in particular about the careers of teachers? Until the later 1970s, precious little, aside from Becker’s seminal study6 and a perceptive chapter by Peterson on secondary-school teachers.’ Since then, the picture has brightened. At present, both longitudinal and cross-sectional approaches are flourishing. 8 Also, some of the most promising work has come from England.9 We are beginning to understand how teachers’ careers play out and which are the most influential determinants, within and outside the institution.