Introduction

In recent years, considerable concern has been expressed about the future of teaching, and the teaching profession worldwide (Alexander et al., 2020) with projections of a global teacher shortage by 2030 (UNESCO, 2016). In Australia, the ‘National Workforce Strategy (2022–2027)’ projects that the ‘Education and Training’ sector will need to fill 149,600 new jobs over the next 5 years to address teacher attrition and shortage (Australian Government, 2022).

Meanwhile, recent Australian reports have identified teaching as a profession waning in attractiveness and status (Australian Council of Deans of Education, 2019). In Australia, the attractiveness of teaching has been impacted by negative commentary from political leaders and mainstream media reporting (Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia, 2019). Despite indications that the public may not share this view of schools as being ‘in crisis' or ‘failing’, the social status of teaching as a profession has nonetheless been greatly affected (Australian Council of Deans of Education, 2019). The low social status of the teaching profession has the potential to significantly impact the quality of education and therefore a country’s economic future (Watt et al., 2012). Indeed, raising the status of teachers was a key priority identified in the recent ‘Australian National Teacher Workforce Action Plan’ which was developed to address teacher shortages by helping to attract and retain more people in the teaching profession (Australian Government, Department of Education, 2022).

The crisis in the status of the teaching profession is occurring at the same time as the requirements of the profession and the roles of teachers are changing to accommodate the needs of the rapidly changing modern economy (Fisher et al., 2020). In teaching, there has been a shift towards innovative practice that encourages independent thinking in students and assists them to adapt to changing job requirements and roles and to achieve social change (Foundation for Young Australians, 2015). The increasing emphasis on innovation within teaching (Lamb et al., 2019; Mynbayeva et al., 2018) could inform the recruitment of talented young people into the teaching profession. Currently, youth have an unprecedented interest in careers that contribute to positive social utility and change (Deloitte, 2020). Therefore, if encouraged to see the teaching profession as a career that values an individual’s innovative capacity to drive positive social change, more young people may be drawn to the profession.

In the field of education, the concept of innovation was developed from the disciplines of business, engineering and design (Lamb et al., 2019). In line with this, Lamb et al. (2019) in their text on innovation and creativity in education cite Crossan and Apaydin (2010, p. 1155) who define innovation as follows:

Production or adoption, assimilation and exploitation of a value-added novelty in economic and social spheres; renewal and enlargement of products, services, and markets; development of new methods of production; and establishment of new management systems. It is both a process and an outcome.

Lamb et al., (2019, p. 34) explain that innovation in education includes inquiry learning designs, problem finding, problem solving, the process of improvement, theory of design and entrepreneurial thinking.

In this study, we conducted a thematic analysis of the motives to pursue a teaching career expressed by pre-service teachers within a national Australian sample drawn from 20 Australian universities. We also considered their motivations in relation to the principles of social innovation and social entrepreneurship.

The rise of innovation within teaching

Historically, the role of the teacher has reflected the values of society at that time. For example, in the 1800s, the teacher’s role was largely to ensure children were capable of closely imitating very simple text forms; teachers and children were not required to demonstrate any original thinking (Centre for Digital Education, 2008). Then, in the early 1900s, teachers were required to process children efficiently through an industrial, factory like model of education aimed at providing a standard, mass education (Commonwealth of Australia, 2018). Such traditional approaches to education included teacher-led, content-driven lessons which required students to passively absorb knowledge for later regurgitation in tests and exams (Benade, 2017).

In contrast, in the twenty-first century, with the shift from a labour-intensive industrial economy to a knowledge-based economy, we now require that teachers and education systems offer learners opportunities to develop original, innovative and creative thinking and problem-solving skills (Commonwealth of Australia, 2018; Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2008).

Alongside the more traditional education components such as Mathematics and English, twenty-first-century curriculum frameworks also incorporate: critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, metacognition, collaboration, communication, cooperation, information literacy, motivation, self-efficacy, conscientiousness and perseverance (Lamb et al., 2017). This required shift for teachers is complex and sophisticated and needs significant support, different types of expertise and greater collaboration compared to traditional education models (Lamb et al., 2019; Mynbayeva et al., 2018).

Teachers are no longer considered the holders of all knowledge (Benade, 2017). Instead, they must create environments in which students can safely engage in exploratory activities that are self-initiated and self-directed (Swann, 2012). Teachers must encourage students to exercise and develop their facility for creativity and criticality, and support students to become fully autonomous lifelong learners (Swann, 2012). Teaching entrepreneurship skills and innovation is now recognised as a core aspect of the teachers’ role (Andreasson, 2020; Commonwealth of Australia, 2018).

Motivations for seeking a profession in teaching

Until recently, the absence of a broad theoretical framework guiding research on motivation has led to imprecise definitions and varied operationalisations of intrinsic, altruistic and extrinsic motivational factors (Richardson & Watt, 2014). However, the development of the ‘Factors Influencing Teaching Choice’ framework (FIT-Choice) by (Richardson & Watt, 2006; Watt & Richardson, 2007, 2008) integrates these factors into a theoretical model based on expectancy-value theory (Eccles, 2009). In this model, the choice to teach is determined by the person’s abilities, beliefs and expectations of success in combination with the values they attach to the work.

The FIT-Choice model has been utilised in research on the motivations to teach expressed by pre-service teachers in Australia, the United States, Germany and Norway (Watt et al., 2012). In all four countries, the most strongly endorsed motivations to pursue a teaching career were perceptions of the following: the intrinsic value of the profession (interest and desire to teach); perceived teaching ability, the desire to make a social contribution; and the desire to work with children/adolescents and positive prior teaching and learning experiences. The least influential factors were choosing teaching as a fallback career and social influences from family/friends or co-workers. Subsequent research has established that these original motivations are evident in those who continue in teaching once they encounter the stressors and realities of the work. Eight years into their career, the teacher’s perceived ability to teach and their desire to make a social contribution predicted persistence and positive behaviours towards students (Watt et al., 2012).

Teachers as social entrepreneurs

The changing role of the teacher in the twenty-first century coincides with a growing awareness of the enormity of social challenges facing humanity. This has seen significant organisational and institutional support globally for promoting and nurturing social entrepreneurship as an area of social development and education (Gupta et al., 2020). There has also been a corresponding transfer into Initial Teacher Education with the rationale that teachers can play an important part in helping to enable and facilitate students’ development of the skillsets required to be successful social entrepreneurs (Konakll, 2015).

It is widely accepted in entrepreneurship literature that the pursuit of opportunity or problems to be solved (Mair & Marti, 2006) is at the essence of entrepreneurial behaviour (Timmons, et al., 2004). Furthermore, social entrepreneurs in particular are driven by social justice and the opportunity to create value and improvements for and with target communities, tackling problems with a dedication to making their vision work (Dees, 1998; Ruskin et al., 2016). In the context of social entrepreneurship, those problems are often societal challenges such as inequality, the effects of systemic discrimination or poverty (Alvord et al., 2004).

Dees (1998) provides a well-recognised and much utilised characterisation of social entrepreneurship. His model draws on the work of seminal theorists from the commercial entrepreneurship domain and proposes that:

Social entrepreneurs play the role of change agents in the social sector, by: adopting a mission to create and sustain social value (not just private value); recognizing and relentlessly pursuing new opportunities to serve that mission; engaging in a process of continuous innovation, adaptation, and learning; acting boldly without being limited by resources currently in hand, and exhibiting a heightened sense of accountability to the constituencies served and for the outcomes created. (Dees, 1998 p. 4)

Congruent with the finding in education research that altruism and intrinsic motivators attract pre-service teachers to the profession (e.g. Richardson & Watt, 2006), social entrepreneurs, too, are drawn to their career path by altruistic and intrinsic motivators. Welsh and Krueger (2013) explain that social entrepreneurs are motivated by the desire to satisfy a need to help society to be better than it was yesterday. Social entrepreneurs have been described as change agents who revolutionise social reforms and create sustainable improvement in the systems in which they work, transforming the lives of those who receive the organisation’s products and services (Kimmitt & Muñoz, 2018).

The extent and scale to which teachers may act as change agents and social entrepreneurs is brought into focus by the work of Zahra et al. (2009) who identified three types of social entrepreneurs- the Social Bricoleur, Social Constructionist and Social Engineer. Social Bricoleurs usually focus on discovering and addressing small-scale local social needs. For example, in education, teachers in remote communities and geographies may work with the resources they have to help bring value to the communities their schools serve. Social Constructionists typically exploit opportunities and market failures by filling gaps to underserved clients to introduce reforms and innovations to the broader social system. In the context of education, Salman Khan’s establishment of the Khan Academy provides a good example. Finally, Social Engineers recognise systemic problems within existing social structures and address them by introducing revolutionary change. In the context of education, one example may be Plato’s first institution of higher learning in the western world.

The present study

The present study was guided by two overarching aims. The first aim was to explore Australian pre-service teachers’ motivations and experiences in making the decision to take up teaching as a profession in the face of research and media reports that suggest teaching is perceived as a low-status career. We focused on what the pre-service teachers viewed as the most attractive features of teaching in the current climate, the people and experiences that may have influenced that decision and their characteristics that had helped them overcome the prevailing negative views of the profession. In the second part of the study, we explored the themes in pre-service teachers’ responses and considered the possible relevance of the elements that drive social entrepreneurship. We employed a mixed-methods survey design which asked respondents to rank possible motivations and influences on their choice to become teachers and then to provide an explanation of their responses which was analysed through qualitative analysis to identify underlying themes.

Method

Participants and procedure

All pre-service teachers attending 20 Australian universities were invited to participate in this study by completing an online survey. The invitation to participate in the online survey was distributed to pre-service teachers via an announcement on their Learning Management Systems. To incentivise engagement, a random draw prize of 40 $50 Cinema E-Cards was offered. A total of 488 pre-service teachers responded to the invitation and of these, 387 generated usable data. Of those who answered the demographic questions, 26% were between the ages of 18 to 21, 22% were aged 22 to 29 or 30 to 39; and 7% were between 41 and 49 and 50–59. Most participants identified themselves as female (74%) and were enrolled in a Bachelor’s degree (67%), with 15% and 4% enrolled in a Master’s degree and Diploma of Education, respectively.

Development of the research survey

This study is part of an ethics approved multi-phase project involving pre-service teachers’ perceptions of the status of teaching and experiences associated with their decision to take up the profession. The first phase was a pilot that combined an online crowd sourcing ideas challenge (N = 9) with an interactive face-to-face activity conducted at one institution (N = 100 pre-service teachers) during O-Week. Results of both components were used to scope the present study (the second phase). In the crowd-sourced ideas challenge, pre-service teachers were invited to respond online to posed questions about teaching as a career. In the O-Week activity, pre-service teachers engaged in small and large group activities to generate responses to the same open-ended questions used in the crowd-sourced ideas challenge. These two sets of data were used by the research team to confirm the set of questions to be used in the final survey. The final survey contained items that were the most prominent indicators for each question for the pre-service teachers who had participated.

Final survey

A 13-item survey was developed which comprised items and accompanying open-ended questions. In this paper, we report on the data gathered from three of those questions that relate to the aims of this study. The questions asked the pre-service teachers to rank each of the most attractive features of the teaching profession and to identify the people who had the most influence on their decision to choose teaching as a career. They also reflected on the personal traits that helped them to move beyond the negative views of teaching as a profession and to choose teaching as their career.

Responses to the questions were captured on a 5-point Likert scale where respondents ranked their response to each of the options in the three questions from ‘strongly disagree’ to ‘strongly agree’. An open-ended question was included after each Likert response to allow for a robust and unrestricted exploration of the participants’ main motives through analysis of their explanations of their ratings (Parr et al., 2021). For example, ‘Please write any additional information explaining your response here’.

Data analyses

SPSS software was used to conduct descriptive analysis of the ranking data (N = 387). The written responses to each question were analysed with qualitative data analysis methods described by Saldana (2009) and Braun and Clarke (2022). The thematic analysis came from a consideration of the free responses to the questions. Following the recommendations of Braun et al. (2020) for analysing free response survey data, the data for all questions were combined and analysed for themes in a similar manner to reflective thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2022). While all authors read the data and familiarised themselves with the responses, the coding of the data was done by KT who is an experienced academic who works in teacher education. Three other authors formed a reflective team to assist in the refinement of themes in the data. These authors are all experienced academics in Business disciplines (AR, RF) and in clinical and personality psychology (GB). The reflective team meetings assisted KT in identifying potential themes in the data and aided the process of modification and clarification of codes and themes. The team discussions were not directed at gaining consensus. Following best practice in reflective qualitative analysis (Tracy, 2010), the purpose was to assist KT to conduct a rigorous analysis and to develop deeper themes. The reflective team engaged in sense-checking ideas, considering connections to theoretical ideas, and identifying assumptions and interpretations.

The thematic analysis coding was completed in three cycles. In the first cycle, the data were coded using an inductive approach and descriptive coding. Saldana (2009) defines descriptive coding as the summarising of the topic of a passage of qualitative data into a word or a short phrase. Descriptive coding provides the researcher with an organisational grasp of the data and is an essential foundation for secondary coding and data analysis (Saldana, 2009). In this cycle of coding, tags were used to assign the units of meaning to the free responses provided by the pre-service teachers to the open-ended questions (Johnson & Christensen, 2008). A second cycle of coding was then undertaken whereby the overall categorical and thematic organisation was developed from the array of first cycle codes (Saldana, 2009). The third cycle involved an analysis of subthemes which reflected the components of motivation and action that had drawn the pre-service teachers to a career in teaching. Table 1: Coding Levels and Themes present the first cycle coding tags and the second and third cycle themes.

Table 1 Coding Levels and Themes
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Results and discussion

Analysis of the ranking data

Motivations to pursue a career in teaching

Quantitative data indicated that the highest ranked factors attracting pre-service teachers to the profession were altruistic and intrinsic motivators (see Table 2). The pre-service teachers strongly endorsed each of the features of teaching with mean rankings well over four on a five-point scale, and standard deviations indicating little variability in the responses. The two factors with the lowest individual rankings of their likelihood to attract pre-service teachers to the profession related to extrinsic motivators (i.e. family friendly hours, 3.72; time off during school holidays, 3.42), and both had standard deviations over one indicating a greater variability in response to these questions.

Table 2 Most attractive features of teaching as a profession (n = 387)
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Of the five sources of influence on the pre-service teachers’ decision to take up teaching as a career, the item with the highest ranking as an influence related to being inspired by a teacher they knew (see Table 3). This was followed by partners and family members. Notably, friends and careers teachers had the lowest rankings for their influence on the decision to become a teacher.

Table 3 People who had the most influence on the decision to take up teaching as a career (n = 371)
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The personal characteristics identified as potentially helpful for pre-service teachers to move beyond negativity about the profession and to choose teaching as a career were all rated over 4 on the scale. This includes the response ‘Not bothered by others’ opinions’ (see Table 4). This suggests that the pre-service teachers surveyed in this study held strong internal convictions about their work which align with the general motivations of altruism and a desire to serve. The desire to make a difference, passion for teaching, and optimism about teaching characteristics also reflect a strong intrinsic drive to enter the profession that might override the opinions of others.

Table 4 Personal characteristics that overcame negative perceptions (n = 387)
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Qualitative data analysis

The qualitative data analysis yielded findings broadly consistent with the quantitative findings but permitted a greater depth of understanding of the meaning of the general rankings. In the second cycle coding of themes once again, altruism emerged as a key driver of the choice of teaching as a career. Teaching was seen as an opportunity to selflessly serve or be concerned about the well-being of others, and this repeatedly emerged from the comments.

Being a teacher means we are a concrete and constant element in children’s lives, this allows us to truly make a difference, whether it be academically or spiritually.

Intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivations were integral to the pre-service teachers’ decision making. It was the desire for personal fulfilment and meaning, and belief that teaching would provide this avenue that was important in the decision to choose a teaching career.

… I decided to embark on a career that I am passionate about and one that will be fulfilling, not simply a career that will pay the bills.

The power of personal experiences emerged as a third theme that illuminated what draws pre-service teachers to the profession. These personal experiences of life changes from education were clearly associated with the impact of the teacher and reinforced the respondents’ belief that teaching can be a force of individual and social change:

I had a wonderful teacher who absolutely changed my life—so I am deeply passionate about the power of a teacher to change a child’s life.

Themes related to social entrepreneurial characteristics

The themes derived in the third cycle of thematic analysis of the pre-service teachers’ responses across the open-ended questions provided clear indicators that they shared the characteristics and motivations associated with social entrepreneurs. The five subthemes identified in the responses that captured the pre-service teachers’ underlying goals and motivations to teach were congruent with the characteristics of social entrepreneurs identified by Dees (1998).

A mission to achieve social change

A prominent theme in the pre-service teachers’ responses was a perception that teaching offered them a career whereby they could drive social change and address students’ needs. They clearly elucidated a deep desire to make a positive difference in students’ lives and futures and to help shape future generations. They also expressed a wish to support disadvantaged children and facilitate student engagement and a love of learning. The responses indicated that the altruistic aspects of teaching such as inspiring students, empowering children or positively influencing the lives of children were the most attractive features of teaching as a career. This mission focus captures the essence of the ‘Mission focus’ to create social value that Dees (1998) identified as defining social entrepreneurship.

Teaching is about helping students to love learning, doing something that makes a difference in the world, contributing and knowing that your day made a difference.

Pursuing opportunities to shape future generations

This theme reflected the participants’ identification of the opportunity to catalyse social reform and shape future generations as an attractive feature of teaching and one of the reasons they were pursuing teaching as a career. As is evident in social entrepreneurship and being social bricoleurs (Zahra et al., 2009), the pre-service teachers’ responses demonstrated an alignment between their motivation to drive social change by taking up opportunities to address the needs of communities in which they will be embedded. At the same time, they acknowledged teaching as a challenging career and expressed their willingness to be persistent in negotiating challenges to successfully instigate social reform and serve their community of students. This commitment to persistence aligns with the characterisation of social entrepreneurs as able to continue to work for social change when they encounter difficulties (Dees, 1998).

Teachers have the opportunity to elevate society into the future.

If you care and want to help other people, teaching is a profession where you can improve someone’s life.

If you think you can positively contribute to the betterment of the world … become a teacher.

Using personal experience to drive adaptation, improvement and innovation

A third theme focused on the participants’ awareness that personal experiences with social problems were driving their choice to become a teacher. The pre-service teachers expressed a desire to pursue improvement in school systems and educational practices to enable better support for vulnerable students. Experience with social problems produced learning experiences for the prospective teachers, which was then translated into knowledge that can be used to help solve the problem for future generations. The pre-service teachers explained that their understanding and familiarity with this problem would position them to be able to address it through driving improvement and innovation in meeting students’ needs.

I think working and shaping young students to give them quality education is the most attractive quality of teaching. Seeing where schools have personally failed me and wanting to give students what I never had.

I had a really rough childhood and primary school was tough for me. I want to be able to not just teach what is on the curriculum but to also teach that being vulnerable is okay, to teach how to express their emotions in a way that won’t hurt others around them. I want to make a difference.

As a kid I wasn’t a fast learner and as a consequence I was left behind. My desire as an educator is to ensure that all students are nurtured and encouraged and that kids who are like I was as a child are not left behind.

The data suggest that teaching, like social entrepreneurship, appears to attract people who enjoy learning, playing with ideas and being creative—all well accepted antecedents of innovation (Dodgson, 2017).

I am a life-long learner, I have much curiosity; and this inspires me to want to work in education where curiosity and learning are central.

You can implement your own ideas and think outside the box to …. The possibilities are endless.

I believe teaching allows you to use your creativity and personal love of learning as you plan, modify, and improve how you teach students the curriculum.

This theme also identified an awareness of the importance of adaptation in the pre-service teachers. Teaching was acknowledged as a challenging career and their commitment to continued engagement with their chosen career signalled an intention to face up to and overcome these challenges, that is to be resilient or adaptable. The participants expressed a willingness to negotiate challenges in order to successfully instigate social reform and serve their community of students.

Teaching is challenging and requires constant learning for improvement. Teachers must constantly evolve to meet changing needs of society and the needs of each new cohort. I think I will enjoy that.

I see teaching as an incredible challenge with the potential to be a very rewarding career by helping others.

The value of working hard to guide another group of people to achieve their goals is really important. This is one of the few unique jobs in the world which has that potential.

A commitment to action

A fourth theme in the responses was the pre-service teachers’ understanding that they were embarking on a resource-constrained career, but they did not intend to let this stop them from acting boldly in their roles as teachers. To some this was a particularly attractive feature. This boldness of character is consistent with the quantitative data where high rankings were given to items such as being passionate, seeing teaching as exciting and being optimistic about it, and not being ‘bothered by others’ opinions’ (all means greater than 4 out of 5: see Table 4). This commitment to bold action is also prominent in Dees’ (1998) characterisation of social entrepreneurs.

If you want to make a difference [in education] there is no better way than through teaching. If you don’t like how your teachers taught you, then you can bring a fresh new approach to teaching.

I have a passion for teaching and I want to create change for individuals and society.

I feel that every teacher knows that they are in a challenging profession. We know that it will be long hours, hard work and that not every day will be a successful day. Those who teach are always working to become better people, educators, and members of the community. It’s always about growth.

Heightened sense of accountability

The fifth and final theme in the pre-service teachers’ responses highlighted their intent to facilitate improved social outcomes for their community of future students. While some participants indicated specific student cohorts, for example, Indigenous students or ‘at risk’ students, most responses referred to all their future students as potential benefactors of their social change agenda. Participants expressed a motivating social mission to serve the community through teaching which deepened their sense of dedication to teaching. Teaching was seen as a service to the nation or community, something that could make a difference in the world. This illustrates the participants’ intense desire to serve society through the medium of teaching and to be accountable for their actions.

Teaching is a service to the nation which can yield quality people empowered with knowledge, skills and sense for a bright future.

If it is your passion to make a difference or continue lifelong learning then teaching is a great outlet. Teachers are people who enjoy learning, informing and inspiring.

If you think you can positively contribute to the betterment of the world … become a teacher.

Those who want to lead the future leaders should teach.

Teaching, social entrepreneurship and social justice

As demonstrated in the thematic analysis, the pre-service teacher participants in this study expressed the same motivations for choosing teaching as a career as those which Dees (1998) identified as characterising social entrepreneurs. The pre-service teachers in this study envisaged teaching as a career that would provide them with opportunities to drive social change, address disadvantaged students’ needs, and to pursue improvement in educational systems to better support vulnerable students. These goals closely align with the principles of social justice. Social justice has been identified as a core component of teachers’ work. The Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority curriculum framework was introduced, at least in part, to improve equity in Australia’s education system (Australian Curriculum Assessment & Reporting Authority, 2022). [Other motivations for the introduction of the national curriculum include economic efficiency, educational quality, and accountability (Ditchburn, 2012; Lingard, 2010; Savage, 2016)]. This national curriculum framework is based on principles of social justice, fairness and equity as expounded in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations Children’s Fund, n.d.) and The Alice Springs (Mparntwe) Education Declaration (Education Council, 2019).

Disadvantage in childhood has a detrimental effect on students’ school achievement and socioemotional functioning (McLoyd, 1998). Therefore, engaging students from disadvantaged and marginalised backgrounds in education is an important focus for teachers, school leaders and educational policy makers (Francis et al., 2017). In fact, current literature reveals that teachers, school leaders and educational policy makers are deeply concerned with equity, social justice, inclusion and advocacy in education (see for example: Francis et al., 2017; McGregor et al., 2017; Woods, 2021). Teachers are often in the unique position of working directly with disadvantaged children, thus affording teachers the opportunity to work towards equalising educational opportunities and narrowing achievement gaps (Ainscow, 2016; Goodwin & Darity, 2019; Sammons et al., 2015). Significantly, Grudnoff et al. (2016) assert that teachers play a critical role in improving disadvantaged students’ opportunities and have a responsibility to enact patterns of practice that generate positive outcomes for disadvantaged learners.

Enacting social justice in schools is complicated, however, and it is not always clear what constitutes a socially just education system (Francis & Mills, 2012). Further, teachers’ ability to act autonomously towards this goal is often thwarted by the availability of school funding and resources (Comber, 2014), or the educational policy and accountability requirements which are imposed on teachers (Francis et al., 2017). For example, teachers’ attempts at social justice and equity are often constrained by school accountability measures which narrow student outcome measures to disproportionately prioritise the outputs and grades over experiences thus further disadvantaging their most vulnerable students (Francis et al., 2017). A further consideration, as highlighted by Mills and Keddie (2012), is some teachers’ tendency to construct students’ cultural differences as deficits or flaws or disadvantage. In their misunderstanding, teachers can attempt to assimilate students into the dominant culture. To address this concern, Mills and Keddie (2012) recommend teacher education programmes rethink how best to support teachers to productively address issues of student diversity during initial teacher education.

Despite these challenges and constraints, teachers often have a heightened sense of accountability towards disadvantaged students, and teacher educators, pre-service teachers and practising teachers continue to innovate and adapt to prioritise social justice and equity in their teaching practice (Goodwin & Darity, 2019; Hajisoteriou & Angelides, 2020; Miller et al., 2022). Thus, Dees’ (1998) characteristics and motivations associated with social entrepreneurs such as mission focus, opportunity pursuit, continuous innovation, adaptation, learning, acting boldly and a heightened sense of accountability are applicable at all stages of a teacher’s career.

In combination, our data demonstrate that pre-service teachers strongly endorse the altruistic and intrinsic motivators to choose teaching that has been documented in previous research (e.g. Heinz, 2015; Richardson & Watt, 2014). Despite the prevailing climate of negativity towards the teaching profession in Australia, the pre-service teachers strongly endorsed the desire to positively influence the lives of children through inspiration and empowerment. This altruistic drive was associated with the intrinsically inspired rewards of personal fulfilment and meaning in life rather than financial reward. These factors fuelled the participants’ capacity to resist the negativity they experienced towards their decision of choosing teaching as a career. The pre-service teachers endorsed a sense of ‘not being bothered by other’s opinions’ and centred their motivation on their own experiences of inspirational teaching and a personal commitment to lifelong learning. Although they clearly recognised the pressures and stresses of teaching, this was balanced by a view of teaching as an exciting career, and their passion and enthusiasm about adopting the role of a teacher and making a difference in the lives of their students.

A unique finding of this study is that the analysis of the pre-service teachers’ free responses identified themes that correspond closely to the inspirations that drive social entrepreneurs. Their responses suggested that they were highly motivated to adopt a mission to create social value through the medium of teaching. As such, the pre-service teachers’ attitudes correspond most closely to the Social Bricoleur type of social entrepreneur proposed by Zahra et al. (2009). Creating social change through inspirational teaching of the students in the classroom aligns with Social Bricoleur’s focus on identifying small-scale local needs using available resources. This is understandable as at this stage of their careers and direct work with children is clearly their primary activity and allows achievable social value.

Implications for Recruitment into Teaching Careers

Reframing teaching career narratives to emphasise the teacher’s potential to conceive and drive social change through their classroom activities and experiences is likely to be an important contributor towards raising the status of teaching as a profession. Such explicit recognition of the alignment between social innovation and the teaching profession may assist teachers to better express the fundamentals of what attracts them to teaching and broaden the market for those attracted to the profession. This would involve enunciating the innovative role that teachers play as one that requires: adopting a mission; recognising and pursuing new opportunities to create social value; continuous innovation, adaptation and learning; and acting boldly. Recruitment materials for pre-service teaching could thus be explicitly framed to attract energetic innovators who want to change society and make a difference for their constituents. This would help the teaching profession to tap into the currently high levels of interest among young people in careers that contribute to positive social utility and change (Deloitte, 2020).

Our finding that careers teachers were rated the least influential on the decision to become a teacher is an intriguing finding regarding promotion of the teaching profession. Careers teachers may also benefit from an increased understanding of a conceptualisation of teaching that emphasises the aspects of innovation and creation of social values that correspond to social entrepreneurship. Such awareness would help them to encourage students with this approach to their work to include teaching as a career option and thereby expand the pool of potential applicants to teaching programmes.

Conclusion

This study examined the motivations expressed by 387 Australian pre-service teachers across 20 universities around their underlying decision to take up teaching as a profession. Focus was on the factors that helped in this decision in a time of negativity towards teaching as a career. Alongside this, we explored their responses in terms of the drivers of social entrepreneurship. Our results highlighted the strong influence of altruistic and intrinsically oriented motivations on choosing teaching. They also demonstrate a close connection between these motivations and the behaviours and intentions of social entrepreneurs. As far as the authors know, this is the first time that a close alignment between pre-service teachers’ motivations for entering the teaching profession and the behaviours and intentions of social entrepreneurs has been demonstrated. Thus, this study makes a unique contribution to the field of Initial Teacher Education.

Limitations of the study include that the sample was self-selected. While the sample is likely to be broadly reflective of the age and gender breakdown of pre-service teachers in Australia, it is not a representative sample and the quantitative data obtained are not readily generalisable. The qualitative data obtained are also unique to this sample and may not capture the full range of views of pre-service teachers. Further research is needed to replicate our findings in a more representative sample, preferably a stratified random sample of pre-service teachers across the country, to overcome self-selection biases.

Another limitation of this study is that the data are cross-sectional and so cannot reflect changes in views about a career in teaching over time. Future longitudinal research could examine the views of high school students about a teaching career prior to entry into a teaching training programme and identify any changes that occur during training and in working as a teacher after graduation.

Future research could also extend the data collection methods used in the present study. In quantitative research, the link between social entrepreneurship and motivation for a career in teaching could be investigated with established measures of these two factors. Recent research on entrepreneurship has introduced an entrepreneurial mindset as a way of investigating individual differences in the disposition to act in an entrepreneurial way (Gillin & Hazelton, 2020). Including this measure along with other relevant dispositional measures (e.g. altruism, curiosity, resilience) and measures of motivation to enter teaching (e.g. FIT-Choice, Richardson & Watt, 2006) would permit further examination of the similarities and differences between pre-service teachers and social entrepreneurs and how this can best be leveraged to raise the status of teaching. In addition, the use of qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews or focus groups with teachers from different cohorts would build on the thematic analyses of survey data employed in the present study.

In conclusion, this study shows that people with altruistic desires to contribute to social value are often attracted to teaching. A unique contribution of this study was our discovery that these general motivations mirror the desires that motivate social entrepreneurs: to drive social change, address social needs and pursue a social mission. Consequently, we argue that teachers are currently unrecognised as agents of social change who, like social entrepreneurs, have the capacity to directly and indirectly diffuse social innovations to benefit their communities, and the wider society. Reframing teaching career narratives, across all stages of teachers’ careers (i.e. pre-service, graduate, proficient, highly accomplished and lead teachers), to emphasise the teacher’s potential to conceive and drive social change through or as a consequence of their classroom activities may make an important contribution towards raising the status of teaching as a profession.