Social support in Learning Networks: enhancing the organizational socialization of starting primary school teachers

The lack of a proper induction and organisational socialisation is seen as one of the main reasons for beginning employees to leave the profession after a few years (OECD, 2004). It seems especially problematic for professions such as teaching (Ingersoll & Smith, 2004). Teachers work in contexts that do not allow frequent and intense observations and interaction with others who could provide meaningful information and act as exemplars of good practice. Recently graduated teachers experience their first job as extremely challenging (Kelchtermans & Ballet, 2002; Liston, Whitcomb, & Borko, 2006). Learning Networks, being social online networks to support professional development, can increase the quality of the induction of starting primary school teachers by providing means to share, exchange and acquire knowledge with and through others (Sloep, 2009b; Sloep, 2009a). Not only can teachers find resources, moreover they get access to like-minded people with expertise and experience in the same domain. However, providing opportunity does not automatically result in the required social interactions for knowledge sharing and acquisition. We propose a social support service that assists teachers to locate and select the most suitable peers to address their problem to and discuss possible solutions. The current study will focus on primary school teachers.