Factors affecting the recruitment and retention of locally-hired teachers in international schools: The evidence from Brazil

Abstract

Recent changes in international schooling have recontextualized the field. It’s irenic-idealist foundations giving way to commercial interests, making it a positional good that creates capitals via schools’ rituals.

This thesis aims to investigate locally-hired international school teachers’ (local-hires) positive motivations for working in international schools in Brazil considering disparities in pay and conditions between them and their expatriate colleagues, addressing the following research question:
“What attracts locally-hired international school teachers to work in international schools in Brazil given the disparities in pay and conditions between them and their expatriate colleagues?”
The study is guided by the following conceptual frameworks: Wright Mills’ (2008) Sociological Imagination and Stebbins (2009a 2009b) Positive Sociology, along with a third conceptual and methodological framework, Hayhoe’s (2021) Grounded Methodology.

Through a Grounded Methodology approach, data was collected and analysed in three phases. In the Open Coding phase, a snowball sample of 38 respondents from schools around Brazil completed a questionnaire. Emergent data from this phase fed into the next phase, the Axial Coding, informing themes discussed during focus groups involving two cohorts of six local-hires. Data from this phase fed into the Selective Coding, where emergent theory was interrogated in interviews with six participants.

The investigation found that local-hires create sociological distinction through Cultural-Linguistic Capitals developed by working in international schools, engendering job security and social mobility, in addition to better pay and working conditions than in local schools. Similarly, through scholarships their children gain similar capitals allowing for future social mobility.

This work contributes to knowledge by taking understandings of local-hires working in international schools beyond contractual differences, while showing how a Sociological Imagination, Grounded Methodology and Positive Sociology are apt conceptual and methodological frameworks, in doing so, showing its significance by bringing them into the canon of the Sociology of International Schooling.

Date of Award	9 Sept 2026
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bath
Supervisor	Tristan Bunnell (Supervisor) & Nicola Savvides (Supervisor)