Education Week article, “Poor for the Rest of Your Life’: Negative Messages Can Deter Prospective Teachers,” features research by Associate Professor Tara Brown and doctoral students Kayla Bill and Tifanee McCaskill. The researchers analyzed the role of social messages in undergraduate prospective teachers’ intent to teach, as well as Black undergraduates’ perception of the cost and benefits of a teaching career.
“A few [undergraduate prospective teachers] said that encouragement related to the social contribution that teachers make or the stability of the job influenced them to pursue the career,” Bill said. “But more frequently, [the undergraduates] described how discouraging messages, particularly about salary, dissuaded them from pursuing teaching and led them to pursue other career paths.”
