Be true to your school? Teachers’ turnover intentions: the role of socioeconomic composition, teachability perceptions, emotional exhaustion and teacher efficacy

ABSTRACT

Teacher turnover negatively impacts educational quality. This study investigates whether schools’ socioeconomic composition (SES), teachers’ teachability perceptions, emotional exhaustion and teacher efficacy impact teachers’ intention to quit and transfer schools. Through multilevel analysis on data of 1247 teachers in 59 Flemish schools, our results indicate that teachers are more emotionally exhausted in low-SES schools, resulting in stronger intentions to transfer schools. This association is explained through the lower teachability levels that teachers ascribe to students in low-SES schools. Intentions to quit teaching do not vary across schools. Efficacious teachers show less intent to quit teaching partly due to less emotional exhaustion.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher attrition
• teacher mobility
• socioeconomic composition
• teachability
• emotional exhaustion
• teacher efficacy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The negative binomial regression output can be acquired by request.

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Grant number G012416N).

Notes on contributors

Lennart Van Eycken

Lennart Van Eycken is a PhD student and teaching assistant working for the research team CuDOS (Cultural Diversity: Opportunities and Socialization) at the Department of Sociology, Ghent University, Belgium. His research focuses on school compositional effects on teacher efficacy, including teacher perceptions and gender stereotypes.

Ama Amitai

Ama Amitai is a doctor in Sociology who worked for the research team CuDOS (Cultural Diversity: Opportunities and Socialization) at the Department of Sociology, Ghent University, Belgium. Her research focused on the role of schools in teacher wellbeing and turnover.

Mieke Van Houtte

Mieke Van Houtte is a full professor of sociology and the head of the research team CuDOS at the Department of Sociology, Ghent University, Belgium. Her research is situated within the sociology of education, including sexual minorities and the effects of structural and compositional school features on diverse outcomes for students and teachers.