Date of Award

Fall 12-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Program/Concentration

Educational Leadership

Committee Director

Steve Myran

Committee Member

Jori Beck

Committee Member

Jason Saltmarsh

Abstract

Understanding what contributes to teachers’ decisions to stay or leave in a school district is complex. There is a need to further investigate factors that influence teacher retention and attrition so that policy makers and school leaders can be informed about practices that may replenish and sustain the educator workforce. In an effort to understand the essence of the lived experience of teachers who previously made a decision to move districts, this study used phenomenological methods for the purpose of discovering the role that access to individual and collective social capital played in teachers’ decision making. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 8 public school teachers who had moved to a rural division in southeast Virginia. Narrative data were analyzed using an iterative process of engagement to illuminate the underlying meanings of participants' experiences. Initial broad units of meaning were identified. The next phase of analysis included a deductive analysis that drew on Social Capital Theory as a guiding lens. Meaning units were then clustered and synthesized into experiential patterns that revealed shared and divergent aspects of the phenomenon. These thematic clusters illuminated the relational and organizational factors influencing teachers’ decisions to move between districts, thereby allowing the narrative data to be reduced to a composite summary. Inductive discovery paired with a deductive analysis using Social Capital Theory as a lens elucidated how social relationships contributed to decision making when determining when to stay or move.

Teachers were rooted, or uprooted, by the relationships in their school environment. Teachers’ decisions to move were often driven by the quality of human connection within their schools. Findings indicate a need to prioritize relational leadership and structures that increase access to social capital.

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DOI

10.25777/a0cq-1j34

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