Our theoretical framework

This case study takes a transactional–ecological theoretical framework to guide the study.  Originally emerging from the field of developmental psychology to understand the interplay of nature and nurture^[1] the transactional-ecological model has since been more widely adopted to better understand the ongoing transactions between the individual and the experiences provided by his or her social settings.  From an ecological perspective, every social context or ‘ecology’ contains a number of social systems that an individual must understand and negotiate. The transactional–ecological framework comprises bidirectional, person-context transactions^[2] in which the individual influences their environment and the environment reciprocally influences the individual.

This theoretical framework has been previously used in education research to investigate resilience^[3], teacher identity^[4] and teacher resilience^[5][6][7].

1. ^Sameroff, A. (2009). The transactional model. American Psychological Association. doi.org/10.1037/11877-001
2. ^Sameroff, A. (2010). A unified theory of development: A dialectic integration of nature and nurture. Child development, 81(1), 6-22.
3. ^Sameroff, A. J., & Rosenblum, K. L. (2006). Psychosocial constraints on the development of resilience. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1094(1), 116-124.
4. ^Day, C., Sammons, P., Stobart, G., & Kington, A., & Gu., Q. (2007). Teachers matter: Connecting lives, work and effectiveness. Maidenhead: Open University.
5. ^Day, C., & Gu, Q. (2014). Response to Margolis, Hodge and Alexandrou: misrepresentations of teacher resilience and hope. Journal of Education for Teaching, 40(4), 409-412.
6. ^Johnson, B., Down, B., Le Cornu, R., Peters, J., Sullivan, A., Pearce, J., & Hunter, J. (2014). Promoting early career teacher resilience: A framework for understanding and acting. Teachers and Teaching, 20(5), 530-546.
7. ^Papatraianou, L. H. (2012). An exploratory investigation of early career teacher resilience (Doctoral dissertation). Unpublished PhD thesis, University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia.