| dc.description.abstract | Teachers are responsible for children’s educational and social learning outcomes. In this sense, teachers are also a requirement for a knowledge-based society. Despite the important role teachers have for the educational system and society at large, teachers report they feel underappreciated, experience high stress levels and have to cope with educational policies that do not conform to their own professional identities. Previous research have therefore focused on teachers’ motivation to leave the occupation. A few recent studies have also considered the importance of teachers’ background characteristics in student-teacher matching, as teachers can function as role models and particularly for minority pupils. It is therefore necessary to study diversity in the teaching population. Teacher attrition is, moreover, dependent on teachers’ motivation and opportunity to change careers. Hence, differences in attrition between teacher groups with different demographic characteristics might suggest differences in opportunities and inequalities in the labour market. Teacher diversity and teacher attrition are both educationally and sociologically relevant. Moreover, both nationally and internationally, the literature in this field is rather scarce. Hence, this thesis aims to fill a vital gap in this research field. The thesis examines differences in teacher attrition for different demographic groups, how these differences might be explained and how differences develop over time, with a particular focus on the first five years of their teaching careers. The demographical characteristics are gender, social background and minority background. According to class theories, children’s upbringing and parents’ accumulated capitals can affect educational choices and occupational destinations (e.g. Bourdieu, 1984; 1986). And teachers need both the motivation and opportunity to leave. Many of the motivational factors can be placed within Gambetta’s (1987) push/pull framework. Differences in attrition are examined with different pushing/pulling factors and differences in credentials, as credentials promote different opportunities on the labour market. The thesis uses the Oslo Register Data Scheme (ORDC) for teachers’ social background. The analyses show that income can in many cases explain attrition differences. However, the central government regulates teachers’ wages, and are dependent on seniority, attained educational level, percentage of full-time employment and job-position. Lower wages are associated with higher risk of leaving. More women and minority teachers (with ties to Norway and another culture) leave teaching, which can be explained by differences in earnings. The results suggest that the most likely explanations to differences in income are due to reduced full-time positions and job-positions, which again could suggest persisting gender-roles and gender-segregated labour market. Teachers from higher economic backgrounds leave more than teachers from economic lower-middle class. There could also be differences in aspirations and job-values between teacher groups with different demographical characteristics. Higher social strata have higher propensities to leave teaching, and literature suggest this could be due to differences in job-values. GPA was shown to be significant for teachers from higher cultural and professional classes, and income was significant for teachers from higher economic classes. It could be that teachers from higher social strata have different career-paths and never plan a life-long career in teaching. If teachers from higher strata leave teaching due to differences in aspirations, then this could suggest 1) difficulties with teacher retention policies and 2) literature should re-conceptualise teacher attrition as a sign of agency and not only as a lack of resilience. An interesting result is that immigrant teachers have higher attrition rates than majority Norwegian teachers already by the first year in teaching and increases by the fifth year. None of the control variables can explain the difference in attrition, and attrition differences is explained by unmeasured variables. An unmeasured factor could be immigrant’s socio-cultural background, as immigrant teachers might be a heterogeneous group. It is also possible that immigrant teachers respond to factors differently from the majority, and have significantly different career-paths. | eng |