Teacher Identity and Commitment in Title I Schools: A Collective Case Study

This collective case study examines the lived experiences of teachers in urban, Title I schools and attempts to understand how those experiences inform teachers' decisions about their persistence in their schools. It applies the frameworks of organizational commitment (Meyer & Allen, 1997) and identity-based motivation (Oyserman & Destin, 2010) to narrate how teachers make sense of seminal moments in their careers to make decisions about whether to continue teaching in their schools from year to year. The insights gained from this examination of teachers' identities and lived experiences has important implications for school administrators, teacher preparation programs, and teachers themselves.