From isolation to interaction: A social network perspective on aging teachers’ position in school organizations

(en) Since workforce is greying, an increasing pressure has been put on many sectors, including the public sector, to raise legal retirement age. Nevertheless, older workers, and specifically teachers, usually retire much earlier. In the organizational and educational literature, most studies regarding end-of-career teachers have been applying a deficit perspective: reporting on older teachers’ challenges and difficulties. Only a limited amount of studies takes into account senior teachers’ potentials, learning, and further career development. In this present article, we therefore approach end-of-career teachers from a non-deficit perspective. This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of older teachers at work, by identifying different profiles and by analysing HR practices that target them. Combining identity, organizational and social network theory, we focus on end-of-career teachers’ knowledge and expertise exchange and their position within the school’s network. In particular, we conducted a comparative mixed-methods case study (interviews, social network analysis) in two secondary schools with a sample of ten senior teachers, four younger teachers, and two principals. The results illustrate that older teachers hold central positions in their workplace and have, in accordance with the socio-emotional selectivity theory, limited but strong bounds with colleagues. Moreover, school principals seem to benefit from older teachers’ organizational knowledge by involving them in decisional processes. Nevertheless, results show that principals mainly apply remedial measures to deal with changes due to aging. This paper ends with some implications for school principals: Applying a non-deficit developmental approach is key for sustainable HR management in schools across the lifespan.

Affiliations

UCLouvainSSH/IACS - Institute of Analysis of Change in Contemporary and Historical Societies

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Brouhier, Q., März, V., & Raemdonck, I. (2019). From isolation to interaction: A social network perspective on aging teachers’ position in school organizations. European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology (EAWOP), Turin, Italy. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/25717