The aim of this article was to examine primary school teachers' perceptions about their sense of belonging in co-teaching. We were particularly interested in investigating the factors which enhance or hinder teachers' sense of belonging in their co-teaching relationships. The data were collected using the method of empathy-based stories (MEBS) consisting of frame stories with a variation in whether a co-teaching situation was experienced as positive or negative.Qualitative analysis of the stories revealed that teachers' sense of belonging was constructed through three dimensions: 1) teachers' work practices, 2) mutual relationship, and 3) individual characteristics. The findings contribute to the literature by demonstrating that a sense of belonging in co-teaching is a multidimensional phenomenon that is built in a close collegial relationship between teachers. The study adds a new micro-level perspective on how teachers' sense of belonging is constructed between two co-teachers.
Teacher-student relationships are vital for student learning, yet they can be experienced as a burden by teachers and cause teacher attrition. This paper is based on the stories of six teachers who gave accounts of relationships with students that, counterintuitively, were both problematic and positive. Narrative analysis was applied to these accounts in order to disentangle the complexities of teaching and better understand what factors led the teachers to find the challenge of difficult teacher-student relationships ultimately rewarding.
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