This paper reports on the initial findings of a study on student teachers’ career aspirations.  The study builds on the findings of a wider investigation into the career decisions of 40 women (30 teachers and 10 headteachers) in UK secondary schools, in which 28 of the 30 women teachers interviewed were adamant that they would not consider headship as a career option (Smith, 2007; 2011).  The reasons they gave revealed a set of negative perceptions of headship.  They saw it as inevitable that taking on a school leadership role would entail having to espouse values at odds with their child-oriented preferences, becoming remote from pupils and compromising their relationship with colleagues.  Headship was seen to carry the risk of isolation and unpopularity, and to require ‘toughness’ and financial expertise.

A range of factors have been identified by researchers as influential in the complex relationship between gender, aspirations and career decisions.  Motherhood, and the tendency to assume primary responsibility for childcare, are amongst a number of constraints within which women make their career choices (McCrae, 2003).  Institutionalised gender inequality (Morley, 2000; Coleman, 2002; Moreau et al., 2005; Wilson, 2005; Neill, 2007) works to enable men rather than women to progress, in a system in which ‘sameness’ is privileged and difference denigrated (Wilson, 2005: 244).  Whereas leadership is characterised as masculine, women are ‘seen as other’ (ibid.: 243), and discouraged by powerful, gender-based social discourses from aspiring to positions of authority.

Proportionally, women continue to be under-represented at headship level in the UK (DCSF, 2007) as elsewhere (Gokçe, 2009).  However, this should be viewed in the context of a national decline in the number of all applicants for headship.  In the policy-driven culture of performativity, and increased competition for educational resources, it is reasonable to consider whether some men are also discouraged from aspiring to headship.

Drawing on research on motivation and factors influencing decisions to teach (Kyriacou & Coulthard, 2000; Priyadharshini & Robinson-Pant, 2003; Smith, 2007 & 2008; Roness & Smith, 2009), the ‘Student Teachers’ Aspirations’ study investigates whether there are links between the nature of the student teachers’ motivation, their career aspirations and their perceptions of headship.  The initial intention is to ascertain whether male/female differences are apparent at this early career stage.  Longer-term the plan is to track the sample through the first 2-3 years of teaching in order to identify key influences on and differences in their career orientations and perceptions of headship.     

The research questions for the first phase are:

0. What motivates students to choose teaching as a career?
0. What are their future aspirations?
0. How do they perceive headship?
0. What are the key influences on their aspirations and their motivation to teach?
0. Are there differences according to gender?

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