Conceptualizing teacher resilience: a comprehensive framework to articulate the research field

Abstract

ABSTRACT In recent decades, the number of publications on teacher resilience has increased exponentially. Despite the numerous rich contributions, the lack of a theoretical consensus regarding the phenomenon’s conceptualisation and operationalisation has hindered dialogue between the various results. This paper aims to address this problem by proposing a theoretical model of teacher resilience as a common framework for organising and articulating existing and future research results in the field. We propose two main ideas for conceptualising teacher resilience, based on Vygotskian Cultural Psychology: a) teacher resilience is a dialectical relationship between the teacher and her everyday professional adverse situations that causes a positive transformation of both the teacher and the situation; and b) this relationship is mediated by cultural artefacts that are distributed in social and professional communities. The paper presents this model and articulates some of the current research on teacher resilience accordingly. It is argued that such a model offers a comprehensive framework for understanding teacher resilience, gives new theoretical significance to current research on the phenomenon, and facilitates further development of the field.