The shortage of teachers is considerable in many European countries (Federičov, 2020; García, & Weiss, 2019). It concerns different school types from primary schools to vocational schools. Moreover, a wide range of school subjects is affected. The lack of teaching personnel that European countries face today has obviously led to severe challenges in society. Hence, there is an urgent need of recruiting, mobilizing and retaining educated teachers in many parts of the world. 

 Against this background, the aim of the symposium is to describe, explain and compare teachers’ shortage from the perspective of three European countries: Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. The purpose of this session is to discuss the phenomenon and how to handle it depending on different situations in each country. Having a clear understanding of background factors and main explanations will lead to a better insight and preparedness to prevent and correct the shortage in a short and long term.

 Researchers from three countries, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany, are going to share their findings from their research activity for two years. The overall ambition of the session is to comprise new knowledge and gaining a deeper understanding of the problem of teacher shortage, including how reasons, solutions and implications behind teacher shortage are mutually intertwined, which will be of importance for stakeholders in the three countries and internationally. We are also going to discuss possibilities and problems with international comparisons concerning methodology and theoretical aspects focusing on research and literature in the field. Due to variations between the studied countries, we suggest a multiple case design as methodological approach which allows an individual analysis as well as a comparison of the countries. The methodological model comprising 8 parameters and 23 indicators summarizes the interacting factors influencing teacher shortages (Ana et al., 2022).

 The discussion session is going to be a focussed conversation centred around the following questions:

(a) How may the current situation be described regarding the teacher shortage in each of the three countries? What are the background factors and main explanations for teacher shortage?

(b) What similarities and differences can be seen, regionally, nationally, and internationally? How can these similarities and differences be explained? What can be learnt from each other and from the three countries?

c) How could each country understand, prevent, and correct the shortage of teachers in the short and long term?

d) How may the lack of a specific teacher category, vocational teachers, in this context, be explained and understood?

 The university partners have been working together for two years in a research-based net-work-project (What About Teachers’ Shortage, WATS’ up) and are keen to advocate for others of similar interests to become involved. Participants are encouraged to join this discussion and to help expand the international network of researchers interested in teachers´ shortage worldwide.

 Expected outcomes related to research will be the research contribution of scientific novelty of new knowledge in teacher shortage in a transnational perspective. These insights are going to lead to a knowledge contribution of the phenomena of teacher shortage, which may be difficult to attain solely on a national level. The research project may also shed light on which strategy leads to teachers staying in their profession in the long term.

Ana, M. Blanco, A.M., Bostedt, G. , Michel-Schertges, D. & Sabrina Wüllner, S. (2022). Studying Teacher Shortages: Theoretical Perspectives and Methodological Approaches. (Manuscript in press). Federičová, M. (2020). Teacher turnover: What can we learn from Europe? European Journal of Education, 2020(00), 1–15. DOI: 10.1111/ejed.12429 García, E., & Weiss, E. (2019). The teacher shortage is real, large and growing, and worse than we thought. The first report in ‘The Perfect Storm in the Teacher Labor Market’ series. Economic Policy Institute. epi.org/163651