Across Europe and the OECD, people from lower socio-economic backgrounds remain persistently underrepresented in the teaching profession (Schleicher, 2014; Donlevy et al., 2016; Ingersoll et al., 2021). Despite extensive policy initiatives to diversify initial teacher education (ITE) recruitment, the teaching workforce remains strikingly homogeneous in its class composition across multiple national systems (Abawi & Eizadirad, 2020). This lack of diversity is especially concerning given mounting evidence that teacher diversity enhances outcomes for marginalised students and strengthens the profession’s capacity to challenge educational inequalities (Ingersoll et al., 2021).

Existing research has documented this underrepresentation and examined the experiences of working-class individuals who successfully navigate ITE pathways (Goodwin, 2020; Keane et al., 2018, 2020, 2022). However, we rarely hear directly from young people in disadvantaged schools about how they themselves view teaching as a possible career. Understanding why teaching does – or does not – appeal to these students is crucial if we wish to address workforce homogeneity at its roots.

This study asks: What factors attract or repel students attending disadvantaged schools from pursuing teaching careers, and how do these students understand the role of teachers and education in relation to social class and opportunity?

The research is situated within Ireland’s DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) system, which designates schools serving disadvantaged communities for additional support. DEIS is comparable to the UK's Pupil Premium initiative, French REP (priority education networks), and similar targeted intervention programmes across Europe. Eleven DEIS primary and post-primary schools participate in this doctoral study, enabling analysis across age phases and institutional contexts.

The theoretical framework draws on critical European social theory, combining Bourdieu’s account of social reproduction and cultural capital (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990), Foucault’s analytics of power and governmentality, Marx’s critique of class relations and Freire’s critical pedagogy (1993). Within this transformative paradigm, education is conceptualised as a site of both oppression and potential liberation: the study examines how power operates through schooling to normalise class hierarchies while also exploring possibilities for consciousness-raising and emancipatory practice.

The study employs a critical pedagogical approach (Freire, 1993; Gandin, 2012; Giroux, 2011; hooks, 1994) through a series of structured workshops with participating classes. These workshops serve a dual role: they act as research instruments generating rich qualitative data, and create spaces for critical reflection on social class identity, conceptualisations of power (Harwood et al., 2014), the purposes of education, and the role of teachers as agents within social structures. Workshop activities encourage students to examine their own educational experiences, consider how class operates in schools, and reflect on whether teaching represents a viable or desirable career path for people from their backgrounds.

The study also draws on motivational scholarship, particularly the Four Phase Model of Interest Development (Hidi & Renninger, 2006) and Expectancy–Value Theory (Eccles & Wigfield, 2020), to analyse how interest in teaching careers develops—or fails to develop—among this student population.

This research contributes to European and international debates on teacher education by centring student voice in understanding recruitment barriers, offering methodological innovation in using critical pedagogy as both intervention and investigation, and providing evidence that can inform policy approaches to diversifying the teaching profession in contexts where class-based educational inequality persists.

This qualitative study is grounded in a transformative research paradigm, positioning the research process itself as a potential instrument of social change. The methodology integrates critical pedagogy with rigorous qualitative analysis to both understand and disrupt patterns of teacher workforce homogeneity. Participants and setting The study involves approximately 360 students across 11 DEIS (designated disadvantaged) schools in Ireland, at both primary and post-primary levels. Schools were purposefully selected to represent geographic and linguistic variation (urban/rural, different patronage models, coeducation/single sex), enabling examination of how different contexts shape student perspectives on teaching careers. Data collection Data are generated through a multi-workshop programme, “Spreagadh” (Irish for “inspiration/motivation”), conducted with intact classes. Workshops employ Ketso, a participatory toolkit using felt workshop mats and colour-coded “leaves” to facilitate collaborative idea generation and dialogue. This tangible, tactile approach has proven particularly effective in eliciting authentic responses from young people and democratising participation. Each workshop used critical pedagogical methods, including structured discussions of social class, power and education, with Ketso materials used to organise and externalise student thinking. While all sessions were audio-recorded and selectively revisited to support analytic immersion, the recordings were not fully transcribed beyond an initial set of primary workshops; instead, the Ketso outputs (leaves, clusters and maps) formed the primary qualitative data source. Additional contextual insights were drawn from brief written reflections, and researcher field notes documenting workshop dynamics and site-specific factors. Analytical framework The study employs dual analytical approaches: (1) an adapted interpretative phenomenological approach, treating small workshop groups as idiographic cases to explore how students collectively make sense of issues being explored; and (2) Reflexive Thematic Analysis to identify patterns across the dataset by school level, geographic location and workshop progression. Both strands of analysis are informed by the critical conceptual framework drawing on Bourdieu, Freire, Foucault and Marx, guiding interpretation of how classed inequalities and possibilities for resistance are articulated in the Ketso maps and accompanying data. Ethical considerations The research received institutional ethical approval and adheres to rigorous protocols, including informed consent from students and parents/guardians, careful attention to power relations in school settings, robust confidentiality protections, and ongoing reflexivity regarding the researcher’s positionality. The methodological strength of the study lies in its commitment to centring student voice while maintaining theoretical sophistication, offering a participatory research model with young people in disadvantaged contexts that has potential transferability across European education systems.

Preliminary findings show that students in DEIS schools hold a sophisticated understanding of social class, schooling and inequality, yet rarely translate this critical awareness into imagining themselves as teachers. Workshop groups articulated how class shapes access to resources, expectations and outcomes, but when considering their own futures, teaching was often rejected using individualised deficit reasoning about confidence or academic ability rather than structural explanations. Across age groups, students described rich informal pedagogical experience—supporting siblings, helping peers and leading youth activities—while framing classroom teaching as requiring exceptional patience and emotional endurance within tightly controlled systems. Many saw themselves as capable in informal settings but reluctant to enter a profession perceived as emotionally demanding and institutionally constrained, revealing substantial pedagogical capital that current pathways fail to recognise or cultivate. Later workshops focused explicitly on teaching careers. Post‑primary students weighed attractions to teaching (making a difference, understanding students from similar backgrounds) against material, academic and cultural barriers, yet remained highly engaged and offered nuanced, sometimes ambivalent accounts that complicate deficit narratives portraying working‑class students as lacking aspiration. A culminating collective event brought students from multiple DEIS schools together, intensifying shared positioning and solidarity and prompting students to imagine change through collective presence within the profession rather than individual effort alone.

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