The conceptualization of costs and barriers of a teaching career among Latino preservice teachers

Abstract

We investigated the perceived costs and barriers of a teaching career among Latino preservice teachers and how these men conceptualized costs relative to their race-ethnic identity, gender identity, and planned persistence in the profession from an expectancy-value perspective. We used a mixed-method approach that included a content analysis of open-ended survey responses to identify salient costs and barriers and non-metric multidimensional scaling (MDS) of participants' responses to quantitative scales to capture phenomenological meaning of perceived costs, collective identity constructs, and planned persistence in the profession. Participants identified a range of drawbacks and barriers of a teaching career including concerns about job demands, work conditions, teacher preparation demands, emotional costs, social status, and salary, among other concerns. The MDS map for the whole sample suggested race-ethnic and gender identity were closely associated with status, salary, and morale; maps also provided insight into phenomenological meanings of different types of costs and cost measures. MDS maps for individual students demonstrated substantial diversity in individual meanings that are lost in group-level analyses. Results are discussed with attention to theoretical and practical implications for understanding and supporting men of color entering the teaching profession.The United States teaching workforce is mostly white, female, and monolingualdemographics fail to reflect the increasing racial diversity of the student body. As of 2016, approximately 80 percent of all public school teachers were non-Hispanic White and 77% were women (Taie & Goldring, 2018). At the nexus of both gender and racial trends, male teachers of color are particularly underrepresented. Even in racially and ethnically diverse regions such as New York City, the context of the current study, men of color constitute less than 9% of teachers, while boys of color constitute 43% of the student population (NYC Men Teach).

From Interest to Entry: The Teacher Pipeline From College Application to Initial Employment

“…Previous studies document that men (Bristol et al, 2020;Weaver-Hightower, 2011) and students of color, in particular, often face challenges in navigating TEPs (Gist, 2017;Sleeter et al, 2014). These challenges include stressors and micro-aggressions encountered during coursework and field experiences (Scott & Rodriguez, 2015), a lack of compensation for student teaching (Bergey et al, 2019), From Interest to Entry and general feelings of isolation and exclusion (Cheruvu et al, 2015). In fact, teacher education can perpetuate systemic racist structures (Kohli & Pizarro, 2022) and often leave preservice teachers unprepared for entering hostile racial climates within schools (Kohli, 2019).…”

Gender differences in high school students’ perceived values and costs of learning chemistry

“…While maps with higher numbers of dimensions have lower stress values indicating more accurate representations, maps with fewer dimensions are easier to interpret. Based on the previous literature discussing and using MDS (e.g., Mair et al, 2016;Bergey et al, 2019), this study adopted the following criteria: appropriate and good fit is indicated by coefficient below 0.20 and 0.15, respectively. Items measuring a latent factor were connected with lines and presented in the same color.…”

Latinx career psychology: Work and vocational development of Latinx individuals.

“…Research with Latinx high school students reported that the most common barriers to college included lack of financial resources, family responsibilities, lack of teacher support, peer pressure, and systemic discrimination (Manzano-Sanchez et al, 2019). Further, lack of information and limited social capital are additional barriers for Latinx students' career decision making, success in college, and planning career/professional trajectories (Bergey et al, 2019;Rios-Aguilar & Deil-Amen, 2012). Finally, Latina students in a male-dominated field reported gendered racism as a barrier to persistence in the field (Garriott et al, 2019).…”