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Risk And Resilience In Beginning Special Education Teachers, Bridget Belknap, Juliana Taymans

The Journal of Special Education Apprenticeship

Special education teachers leave the field at a rate that outpaces their general education teacher counterparts, with special education teaching positions unfilled at a rate 5.5 times greater than general education positions (Boe, 2006). This study identified perceptions of risk and resilience in nine first year special education teachers in order to identify how to best support and retain them. Through semi-structured interviews the teachers described their experiences in the following roles (1) co-teaching, (2) self-contained, (3) case management, and (4) “other” (e.g., coach, tutor). Participants identified and positively or negatively ranked six “feeling” words they experienced in each role, …