Teacher shortages are an increasing challenge given the ageing teacher workforce and the high percentage of teachers leaving the teaching profession after only a few years. EU-countries therefore aim to attract a wider range of suitable candidates to careers in teaching such as those people who enter the teaching profession as a second career (EC, 2013). Also from an educational perspective, it is argued that the prior occupational experience of second career-teachers can be a valuable asset to schools. Research, however, shows that second career-teachers’ transition into the teaching profession is challenging (Baeten & Meeus ,2016; Tigchelaar et al., 2009). Being expert and novice at the same time, schools struggle with the successful induction of this group of professionals (Haggard et al. ,2006). The fact that not all of those teachers have a full-time teaching employment, but combine it with another part-time function in their domain of expertise, complicates their socialization process within a school (März&Kelchtermans,2017; Poikela et al.,2009). The purpose of this paper is to disentangle the induction processes through which second career-teachers become familiar with their new role in the school as a workplace. Combing the theory of ecologies of practice (Kemmis&Heikkinen, 2012) with a non-deficit approach to teacher induction (Correa et al., 2015), this paper aims to gain insight in the induction and organizational embeddedness of second career-teachers. Through the use of an explorative qualitative case study approach, second career-teachers in Belgium (TVET-secondary schools) and Finland (liberal adult education) participated in semi-structured interviews and reflection assignments (n=19, school year 2017-2018). In the first instance, the results indicate how a remedial view on teacher induction ignores the potential for school development that becomes available through the arrival of second career-teachers. Instead of framing second career-teachers as individuals in need of support, schools must perceive them as unique resources and offer induction programs that enable them to grow into their teacher identity. Furthermore, results show how the practice of teacher education and induction function as two separate systems. Since second career-teachers are often (and increasingly in Finnish liberal adult education) part-time teachers, it is unclear who is responsible for their induction process. A successful integration of second career-teachers asks for a specific niche that is composed of cultural-discursive, material-economic, and social-political arrangements. Finally, in order to inhibit the no-man’s land of teacher induction for second career-teachers, the practice of peer group mentoring is presented as a promising approach.

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