Considerable research has been carried out on early career teachers’ ‘difficult’ experiences as novice professionals. For over three decades, researchers have sought to identify the causes of early career teachers’ problems and to make recommendations to address them. In some cases, graphic metaphors have been used to convey the seriousness of teachers’ situations as they ‘battle’ to survive ‘in the trenches’ (Bezzina, 2006). An overview of international research reveals several recurring themes: 1. it is frequently claimed that teachers’ pre-service education does not equip them with sufficient knowledge, skills and dispositions to meet the demands of classroom teaching; 2. early career teachers confront a serious mismatch between their ‘idealistic motivations’ and the daily realities of classroom teaching; 3. too few early career teachers experience a quality induction program; 4. school structures and cultural practices are deskilling teachers; 5. school leaders are frequently too busy or lack the skills to effectively support early career teachers; 7. the consequences of this are high levels of individual stress and burnout which lead to unacceptably high levels of early career attrition and teacher shortages. The frequently proposed ‘solution’ to such teacher shortages is to ‘fix’ the problems that bedevil early career teachers and lead them to leave the profession. However, such a beguiling and simplistic response has not worked in the past and is unlikely to be effective in the future because: 1. it adopts a deficits perspective by focussing on problematic behaviour rather than enabling behaviour; 2. it casts early career teachers as lacking agency and competence; 3. it fails to acknowledge and take account of the dynamic and complex interactions between individuals and their social and geographic contexts that lead to positive outcomes for teachers; 4. its intervention focus is primarily on manipulating ‘variables’ or ‘factors’ rather than on promoting social interaction and the development of relationships. What is lacking in the literature currently is an in-depth understanding of the interplay of personal and contextual factors around early career teachers’ experiences. It is imperative, therefore, that further research is conducted which investigates the phenomenon differently and provides new insights. The research reported in this paper does that by focussing on early career teacher resilience.

This paper reports the early findings of a longitudinal study which aims to investigate how early career teachers negotiate and deal with challenges to their personal and professional wellbeing during their first years of teaching. The study is being undertaken using a critical ethnographic approach with 60 early career teachers in metropolitan, rural and remote areas in two Australian states.

The paper examines: 1. how a re-conceptualised, socially critical ‘human resilience’ theoretical framework can be used to study the complex lives of early career teachers to identify the strategies and processes they use to meet the demands of their profession. 2. the range of circumstances (influenced by socio-cultural and systemic school policies and practices, personal dispositions, and life events) that put early career teachers ‘at risk’ of leaving the profession. 3. what and how personal and contextual factors and processes operate over time to reduce the impact of life stressors on early career teachers. 4. what policy initiatives and school based strategies best promote early career teacher resilience.