Teacher shortage is a world-wide problem and the factor and solution are inquired (Ingersoll, 2001; Dorling-Hamond & Podolsky, 2019). To access a new pool of potential teachers, Alternative Certification Programs (ACPs) have been implemented in many counties, and many second-career teachers (SCTs) have been certified through them. However, ACPs for SCTs has issues; SCTs are regarded matured workers and following this, providing only short initial teacher education programs (ITE) is often seen sufficient, although many studies have found that SCTs confront unique problems during in-service professional development processes (e.g. Hoggs et al., 2023).

In Japan, SCTs are expected to bring high quality education into school, rather than to be a solution for teacher shortage. For instance, many parents think SCTs, even lacking proper teacher education, are the most critical means to improve the quality of school education (Cabinet Office, 2005). Although the demands upon them are different between Europe and Japan, they share the same issue; governments setting too high expectations on SCTs. That’s why we need more empirical research on their actual needs for their professional development and what kinds of values of their earlier (work) experiences they can add in the school context (Tigchelaar et al. 2010).

My research focuses on SCTs’ professional development from two perspectives; the reconstruction of a perception of teaching as a profession, and the relationship between SCTs’ professional development and the social expectations upon them. They both contain historical and cultural perspectives on SCTs’ professional development. Especially latter is significant on this research, because it seems to condition the experiences of SCTs in Japan. International research has illustrated that SCTs have high motivations (Ruitenburg & Tigchelaar, 2021), but the motivation decreasing during early induction phase (Goodwin et al., 2019). This phenomenon seems to be connected with too ideal or optimistic images of teachers’ work. After entering a school, they experience tension between these images and the realities in schools (Lassila, 2017). Under the condition where SCTs are expected too much, the ideals SCTs held before entry into school may be influenced by the discourses in their previous workplaces. Simultaneously, the relationships between SCTs and people around them, such as parents, children, residents around the school, may be different from that between first career teachers (FCTs). This difference is related to the micropolitics in/around the school (Kelchtermans & Ballet, 2002). Therefore, it is significance to research how SCTs construct perceptions of teaching as a profession, and how they reconstruct them through their professional development as teacher in micropolitics in/around the school.

I define “a perception of teaching as a profession” as a mixture of observations, norms, and beliefs about teaching as a profession. Teachers construct, sustain, and reconstruct this perception through their own experiences about teaching or school, including the experiences when they were students themselves (Lortie, 1975) and the experiences in previous workplaces (Ikeda & Watanabe, 2018). Such perception consists of three dimensions; job-perception, teachers-characteristic perception and self-perception. These coincide a response to the following questions: what is teaching as a profession like, what should teaching be like as a profession, and what kind of member of the teaching profession do I want to be.

My research aims to reveal the SCTs’ characteristics as professionals, not just as educators. In Japan, SCTs’ unique competences have resulted in vague expectations placed on them. Such expectations may cover the range of responsibilities teachers have to carry out as professionals. Focusing on a perception of teaching as a profession and micropolitics of SCTs in early in-service professional development, I aim to find ways to overcome this issue and help create better practices of educating SCTs.

I employed interview research from the narrative perspective. In this approach, stories are not taken as reflecting the objective reality, but rather (re)constructions in the time and place where the story is told (Spector-Mersel, 2010). The meaning is created through narratives, the process of storytelling. Stories are often used when examining teachers’ sensemaking and thinking because they express emotions, thoughts, and interpretations (see Elbaz-Luwisch, 2005). Through this narrative lens, I explored SCTs’ experiences, which is the foundation of their perceptions of teaching as a profession (Lortie, 1975) and connection to the development their future teaching practices. The participants were five SCTs who had worked in private company for more than three years and as elementary school teachers for approximately ten years. They can be seen as SCTs who experience the previous jobs enough to internalize the culture of the workplaces, and who can look back their early careers as teachers. The participants included three women and two men. In this presentation, I focus on the stories of two (male) participants, Konno and Tanizaki, to illustrate the construction and reconstruction of their perception of teaching as a profession in micropolitics in/around the schools. I chose the two participants because their ambitions for becoming a competent teacher were worth highlighting. I conducted half-constructed interviews for approximately 1.5-2 hours with each participant. The interviews were recorded and the transcriptions used as the main materials for this research. During analysis, I employed Phoenix’s (2013) narrative framework and Gee’s (2000) identity framework. Phoenix (2013) provides three conceptions, “key narrative”, “canonical narrative” and “personal narrative”. “Key narrative” refers a key theme of narratives, which are repeatedly told and can be reinvented as the life narrative is reworked. “The canonical narratives”, are shared narratives among the culture, can be embedded in the key narrative and justified the narrative related to a personal experience, labelled as “the personal narratives”. Utilizing these concepts, I examine important narrative to understand participants’ perception of teaching as a profession, and analyze the mechanism of the production of the narrative. Then, I employed Gee’s (2000) identity framework to approach participants’ experience from micropolitical perspectives. Gee distinguished four types of identity; nature-identity (N-identity), institution-Identity (I-identity), discourse-Identity (I-identity) and affinity-Identity (A-identity). These four differ based on where identity originates from and how it is sustained. Examining the combination of these different enables us to understand how the identity act in the micropolitics in/around the schools.

First, concerning the perspective of a perceptions of teaching as a profession, SCTs’ job-perception is worth highlighting. Konno faced after effects of Lehman Shock in 2008 and became aware how having a passion for one’s job is crucial to continue working. Tanizaki encountered colleagues who worked creatively even in a stable job at the private company, and who he learned to emulate. Therefore, after entering the schools, having this attitude towards professional development, they continuously made efforts to be competent teachers. The means to grow up as a teacher are basically same with FCTs, but their motivation seems to be different. If the SCTs’ motivations are related to the job-perception created in previous occupation, their motivation seems to be stronger and more enthusiastic. Second, regarding micropolitics, SCTs’ identities had two different aspects. In the case of Konno, some parents showed trust in him (SCTs) because he knows “the real world”. This experience seemed to support his self-esteem as a “special” teacher during early career, enabling him to accept himself as still immature teacher. This double identity triggered his challenging process growing towards being a competent teacher. In contrast, Tanizaki highlighted the importance of being recognized as a competent teacher similar to ordinary teachers. He shares his job-perception created in previous workplace and contributed to reducing the teachers’ workload, but only after he had transferred to a new school. To share his know-how, it was important for him to be recognized as a competent teacher by his colleagues. These cases show that SCTs’ double identity can have several different functions within the school micropolitics. Two future issues remain. First, the detail of how SCTs reconstruct job-perception is still unclear. Second, introducing the perspective of the SCTs colleagues is important to deepen understanding of position of the SCT’s within the schools micropolitics.

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