Teachers play a central role in developing and strengthening education systems, and there is broad international consensus that teacher quality is the greatest in-school factor that influences student learning (OECD, 2017; Darling-Hammond, 2023; UNDP, 2023). From this perspective, it is impossible to conceive of educational quality without considering teachers’ preparation, professional suitability, and working conditions, and the capacity of education systems to attract, prepare, and retain adequately qualified teachers (OECD, 2018; UNESCO, 2022).

Nevertheless, ensuring inclusive, equitable, and quality education faces serious challenges due to the current and projected global teacher shortage. International reports warn that teacher shortages constitute a structural phenomenon affecting countries in both the Global North and the Global South, including several European countries, thereby compromising the coverage, stability, and quality of education systems (UNESCO, 2025). The report emphasises that responses to teacher shortages cannot be limited to salary or contractual improvements, but rather require expanding and diversifying pathways into the profession.

In Europe, various studies and reports have indicated that declining enrolment in initial teacher education programmes and high rates of attrition and turnover have intensified teacher shortages, particularly at the secondary education level (Heinz, 2015; Eurydice, 2018; Symeonidis et al., 2025). This trend is consistent with the Chilean context, where a significant teacher shortage is projected, alongside a sustained decline in interest in teaching (CIAE, 2021; Elige Educar, 2021). In both contexts, secondary education emerges as a critical level, due to the demand for specialised disciplinary preparation and greater difficulties in attracting and retaining teachers.

Within this context, second-career pathways into teaching have gained increasing relevance. These programmes enable individuals with prior academic degrees to enter teaching at later stages of their lives, expanding the pool of prospective teachers and diversifying entry profiles (Eurydice, 2018; Ruitenburg & Tigchelaar, 2021). However, despite their potential, there remains limited knowledge about how students entering teaching through these pathways make sense of their decision to change careers.

The literature has identified a range of factors influencing the decision to become a teacher and to remain in the profession: working conditions, remuneration, social status, and intrinsic, extrinsic, and altruistic motivations (Johnson, 2008; Bellei & Valenzuela, 2010; Heinz, 2015; Arribas et al., 2022). However, much of this research has relied on verbal and rational approaches, centred on retrospective and discursive explanations of vocational decision-making. Several authors have argued that such approaches may be insufficient to capture the symbolic, emotional, and biographical dimensions of experience in non-linear trajectories with significant life disruptions (Riessman, 2008; Squire et al., 2014).

Verbal language often organises experience retrospectively and coherently, leaving aside ambivalence, affect, and meanings that are difficult to articulate discursively (Pink, 2013; Rose, 2016). Visual approaches address these limitations by enabling the condensation of experience and the metaphorical representation of complex biographical processes (Pink, 2015; Prosser & Loxley, 2008), making images a particularly fertile resource for exploring how second-career teacher education students represent and re-signify their pathways into teaching in contexts of teacher shortage and diversified entry routes.

The study’s aim is to understand how secondary teacher education students who enter the profession as a second career construct meaning around their pathways into teaching, with particular attention to the symbolic meanings they attribute to their career-change trajectories. The study is guided by the following research question: How do secondary teacher education students who enter the profession as a second career construct meaning around their trajectories into teaching?

The study is situated within a qualitative interpretive approach, oriented towards understanding the meanings individuals attribute to their professional trajectories and career decisions, particularly in contexts of career change and non-linear pathways into teaching (Denzin & Lincoln, 2018; Flick, 2014). Participants and sampling. The participants were 20 prospective secondary teachers enrolled in a teaching as a second career degree programme in Chile. Students come from different teacher education institutions and regions of the country, allowing for the inclusion of diverse training contexts and prior trajectories. Participant selection followed a two-stage purposive sampling strategy (Palinkas et al., 2015). In the first stage, a broader sample of prospective teachers entering second-qualification programmes was identified (n = 244). In the second stage, a subsample of 20 participants was selected based on criteria of diversity in prior trajectories, teacher education institutions, and geographic location. This procedure resulted in a heterogeneous sample, suitable for exploring the plurality of experiences associated with late-entry vocations into teaching. Data collection. Data were collected through in-depth interviews supported by a photo-elicitation technique, used as a resource to access symbolic, emotional, and biographical meanings associated with pathways into teaching as a second career (Harper, 2002; Tornabene et al., 2018). During the interview, participants selected one image from a photographic dossier composed of 48 photographs, designed to facilitate reflection on trajectories, transitions, and vocational decisions (Baptiste & Bélisle, 2011). The selected image served as the starting point for the conversation, stimulating recall, reflection, and the articulation of meanings that do not always emerge in exclusively verbal interviews (Tornabene et al., 2018). Data analysis. The interviews were fully transcribed and analysed using qualitative content analysis, identifying emerging patterns and meanings within participants’ narratives (Flick, 2014). The analytic process was conducted collaboratively by the research team and supported by ATLAS.ti software (version 25). Ethical considerations. Participation was voluntary, and all participants provided informed consent. Confidentiality and anonymity were ensured through the use of pseudonyms, data coding, and secure data storage. The study received approval from the ethics committee of the sponsoring institution and complies with national and international standards for research involving human participants.

Findings show that the images selected by participants operated as visual metaphors of their pathways into teaching as a second career, representing their non-linear professional trajectories marked by disruptions and transitions. In line with previous research on non-traditional teacher trajectories, entry into teaching does not emerge as a single, discrete decision, but rather as a cumulative process in which prior professional experiences acquire new meanings (Heinz, 2015; Ruitenburg & Tigchelaar, 2021). The analysis indicates that photo-elicitation facilitated the emergence of symbolic and emotional dimensions of vocational decision-making that are not always expressed with the same depth in exclusively verbal accounts. Images enable the condensation of biographical experiences, affect, and temporalities (Pink, 2013); the photographs function as narrative anchors that connect participants’ professional pasts with their present teacher education experiences and with projections of their future teaching practice. Additionally, findings show that participants represented their pathways into teaching through images associated with movement, crossroads, and reconstruction, aligning with research that highlights the identity-related and transformational nature of late-entry vocations into teaching (Sullivan & McCarthy, 2004; Heinz, 2015). These metaphors make visible the recurring tensions between economic stability, social recognition, and vocational meaning, dimensions that have been widely documented in the literature on entry into and retention in the teaching profession (Arribas et al., 2022; Johnson, 2008). From a methodological perspective, the findings confirm the potential of photo-elicitation to deepen understanding of complex professional trajectories, reinforcing arguments advanced by Harper (2002) and Prosser and Loxley (2008) regarding the value of visual methods for accessing meanings that are difficult to verbalise. In this sense, the study contributes to teacher education research by demonstrating how images enable a richer and more situated understanding of sense-making processes associated with teaching as a second career.

Arribas, M. A., Gajardo, K., Reyes, A., & Vargas, P. (2022). Factores que inciden en la elección de la enseñanza como carrera: un análisis en Iberoamérica. Revista Interuniversitaria de Formación del Profesorado. Continuación de la antigua Revista de Escuelas Normales, 97(36.3). https://doi.org/10.47553/rifop.v97i36.3.93048 Darling-Hammond, L. (2023). How teacher education matters. Journal of Teacher Education, 74(2), 151–156. https://doi.org/10.1177/00224871231161863 Eurydice. (2018). Teaching careers in Europe: Access, progression and support. Publications Office of the European Union. Flick, U. (2014). An introduction to qualitative research (5th ed.). Sage. Harper, D. (2002). Talking about pictures: A case for photo elicitation. Visual Studies, 17(1), 13–26. Heinz, M. (2015). Why choose teaching? An international review of empirical studies exploring student teachers’ career motivations. Educational Research and Evaluation, 21(3), 258–297. https://doi.org/10.1080/13803611.2015.1018278 Marcelo, C. (2009). Los comienzos en la docencia: Un profesorado con buenos principios. Profesorado. Revista de Currículum y Formación del Profesorado, 13(1), 1–25. Marcelo, C., Marcelo-Martínez, P., & Jáspez, J. F. (2021). Cinco años después: Análisis retrospectivo de experiencias de inducción de profesores principiantes. Profesorado. Revista de Currículum y Formación del Profesorado, 25(2), 99–121. https://doi.org/10.30827/profesorado.v25i2.18444 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2017). Education in Chile: Reviews of national policies for education. OECD Publishing. Pink, S. (2013). Doing visual ethnography (3rd ed.). Sage. Rose, G. (2016). Visual methodologies: An introduction to researching with visual materials (4th ed.). Sage. Ruitenburg, S. K., & Tigchelaar, A. E. (2021). Longing for recognition: A literature review of second-career teachers’ induction experiences in secondary education. Educational Research Review, 33, 100389. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2021.100389 Symeonidis, V., Guberman, A., & Cooper, R. (2025). Addressing teacher shortages in an international context: implications for the quality and status of teacher education. European Journal of Teacher Education, 1-8. UNESCO. (2022). Reimaginar juntos nuestro futuro: Un nuevo contrato social para la educación. https://www.unesco.org UNESCO & International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030. (2025). Global report on teachers: Addressing teacher shortages and transforming the profession. UNESCO Publishing. Yüce, K., Şahin, E. Y., Koçer, Ö., & Kana, F. (2013). Motivations for choosing teaching as a career. Asia Pacific Education Review, 14, 295–306. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-013-9258-9