Beyond the pipeline: Drivers of ethnic disparities in teacher recruitment, retention and progression in England

JULIET KOTONYA AND KATHERINE ASTON, NATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH, UK Introduction England’s pupil population is becoming increasingly ethnically diverse, yet the ethnic make-up of the teaching workforce remains unrepresentative (Demie and Huat See, 2022). This shows up in schools as disparities in who enters teaching, who remains and who progresses into leadership. Representation of teachers from minority ethnic backgrounds shows the sharpest drop in teacher training and early career stages, and this is compounded throughout a teaching career, so is most pronounced among senior leaders and headteachers (Worth et al., 2022). For schools, this imbalance is more than a demographic concern; it goes to the heart of fairness, inclusion and educational integrity. To investigate how and why these disparities persist, the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), funded by Mission 44, explored ethnic disparities across three important career points: entry into