In the French context, secondary school teachers’ careers are mainly described in terms of a linear and stable pattern, by school authorities, teachers themselves, or even by some researchers (Huberman, 1989). However, this rather monolithic picture can be questioned. Firstly, ways of experiencing professional mobility are more diverse than it seems for teachers, and we may distinguish horizontal forms of mobility from vertical ones (Becker, 1952). Secondly, this linear and stable picture rests upon the sole consideration of permanent careers (corresponding to a civil-servant status in France) despite the proportion of non-permanent teachers at secondary level rising significantly (Delhomme, 2019). Thirdly, most studies on French teachers only refer to public sector teaching, even though state-funded private sector teachers represent 19.6% (MEN-DEPP 2019) of the entire state-funded teaching workforce at secondary level. We thus propose to analyse the different ways of committing to and engaging in a teaching career in France at the secondary level. We consider that professional engagements of teachers may be considered through at least three different aspects: accessing a teaching position (from success at national examinations to professional integration at the local level), resorting to geographical and professional mobility schemes (which are different according to employment status, personal resources, networks and aspirations) and investing (time, ideas, relationships…) in professional tasks. Thanks to this multifaceted focus, we aim at linking career patterns with pedagogical views and practices, and with relationships to pupils. We follow the central hypothesis that professional commitments and expectations are embedded in a long-term process over the course of which they may change according to the educational situations that teachers encounter in schools or to the different (and sometimes precarious) job positions they experienced. This paper draws on a qualitative study conducted in the Lyon area in France in 2018, which is part of the ERC project TeachersCareers (H2020) on the transformations of the regulation of the teaching profession in Europe. We interviewed 44 teachers in 5 public sector schools and 2 state-funded private schools at upper secondary level, contrasted by their localisation, their publics and their school offer. Teachers were selected in order to vary by age, sex, subjects, employment status, careers and modalities of entry into the profession. We thus aimed at binding together a wide array of factors that determine a career in teaching, modalities of adjustment to professional expectations and processes of engagement in specific pedagogical views or practices.

Becker H.S. (1952), « The Career of the Chicago Public schoolteacher », American Journal of Sociology, vol. 57, n°5, pp. 470‑477. Delhomme B. (2019), « Les trajectoires professionnelles des contractuels : entre emploi pérenne et cumul de CDD courts », in Rapport annuel sur l’état de la fonction publique, Paris, DGAFP, pp. 231‑253. Huberman M. (1989), « Les phases de la carrière enseignante : un essai de description et de prévision », Revue Française de Pédagogie, vol. 86, pp. 5‑16. MEN-DEPP (2019), Repères et références statistiques.