Teachers’ Professional Identities and Attitudes towards Students´ Educational Disadvantages

Teachers have always been the most influential institutional professionals involved in the educational trajectories of students. However, in the knowledge society, the teaching profession is increasingly confronted with social and emotional dilemmas in educating pupils for an individualised life course, which implies a lifelong learning approach. The goal of this paper is to analyse whether and to what extent teachers perceive the growing importance of these new challenges and whether they pay attention to the disadvantages that affect some groups of students. The paper is based on the qualitative analysis of 38 teachers’ in-depth interviews and 12 focus groups with 45 teachers in total. The interviews were carried out in Finland, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands as these countries are representative of different school systems (comprehensive vs. selective) and transition regimes. This international sample contributed to adressing the purpose of this paper, which is to contribute to a greater understanding of the complex nature of educational disadvantages and the role teachers play in mitigating or reproducing them.