Challenges in the Professional Development of Teachers Teaching Out-of-field in Chinese Elementary Schools under the Background of “Structural Teacher Shortage”

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-253-8_51How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Structural Teacher Shortage (STS); Out-of-Field (OOF); Out-of-Field Teaching (OOFT); Professional Development (PD); Challenges

Abstract

In recent years, there have been numerous cases of out-of-field teaching in China due to the problem of “structural teacher shortage” in many primary schools, which poses challenges to the professional development of such teachers. This study aims to investigate the specific difficulties encountered in the professional development of teachers in this category. After conducting a case study in a primary school in Chongqing, China, the author found that the professional development challenges for teachers instructing out-of-field teaching are diverse and contingent upon individual emotions, mindsets, and personalities. Three main scenarios emerged: Firstly, some teachers, possessing open personalities and maintaining a positive emotional and mental outlook, handle the situation competently without facing significant professional development hurdles. Secondly, certain teachers struggle due to the extensive interdisciplinary nature of the subjects or their relatively conservative personalities, leading to a negative and resistant attitude toward this arrangement, and thus they are unable to cope with the teaching responsibilities, encountering substantial professional development challenges. Thirdly, some teachers approach this arrangement with moderate resistance and optimism, managing to fulfill interdisciplinary teaching duties adequately, and their professional development issues are not solely attributed to out-of-field teaching but rather reflect broader challenges within the subject itself.

Copyright

© 2024 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Lan Ma
PY  - 2024
DA  - 2024/05/28
TI  - Challenges in the Professional Development of Teachers Teaching Out-of-field in Chinese Elementary Schools under the Background of “Structural Teacher Shortage”
BT  - Proceedings of the 2024 3rd International Conference on Humanities, Wisdom Education and Service Management (HWESM 2024)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 419
EP  - 427
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-253-8_51
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-253-8_51
ID  - Ma2024
ER  -