ABSTRACT
The recent crisis in teacher recruitment and retention has led to several studies, both here and abroad, focusing on why teachers become stressed and, in some cases, leave the profession (for example, Evans 1998; Spear et al. 2000; Smithers and Robinson 2000). A lesser explored perspective is why teachers choose to stay in the profession and what factors influence this decision, although a recent small-scale study (Cockburn 2000) explored why some teachers enjoyed their job. If we are to improve teacher retention, then it is imperative that we develop our insights into why some individuals remain in teaching in spite of less edifying aspects of the job and in the face of the (well-documented) stresses and strains which are placed on them. The following statistics from an Association of Teachers and Lecturers survey (1998) of 1,878 teachers could have been written at any time in the last ten years and not come as a surprise:
86 per cent of full-time primary teachers feel they have insufficient time to do their job as it should be done.
