The influence of teacher resilience on retention rates in high-poverty, high-minority schools.

Teacher turnover is on the rise due to job dissatisfaction. Factors leading to job dissatisfaction include increased demands on student accountability, increased workload, teacher victimization, and a lack of administrative support. Teachers today must possess the ability to endure and overcome adversity while managing the requirements of the job. This study aimed to identify the adult personal resilience characteristics of teachers in high-poverty, high-minority schools that allow them to stay in the classroom without burning out. These teacher characteristics were identified using Taormina’s adult personal resilience theory, which defined four dimensions of adult personal resilience: determination, endurance, adaptability, and recuperability. Although teachers who stayed scored on average higher than teachers who left the district on all four dimensions, the findings were not statistically significant. Suggestions are made for practice as well as further research in this understudied area.