Strengthening Teacher Residencies for Paraprofessionals in Special Education: Building Identity from Within

Self-Authorship and Identity

The exploration of teacher identity and its formation has been highlighted to better understand and inform additional supports and program adjustments for their continued success. Baxter Magolda (2001) suggests 21st century learning outcomes require self-authorship: the internal capacity to define one’s belief system, identity, and relationships (Baxter Magolda, 2001; Kegan, 1994).

Extracting themselves from what they have uncritically assimilated from authorities to define their own purposes, values, feelings, and meanings involves far more than information and skill acquisition. It requires a transformation of their views of knowledge, their identity, and their relations with others (Magolda, 2007).

Pre-professional identity is considered a dynamic, less mature version of professional identity. Such a notion of fluidity in the professional self-necessitates the integration of both personal and professional life experiences in the process of becoming, rather than already being, a teacher. Botha et al. (2023) found the pre-professional identity of first-year preservice teachers is based on external cues and naïve perceptions rather than on well-thought-through personal ideology. Their study found that most first-year preservice teachers place themselves within the first phase of self-authorship. Defined as a person’s ability to conceptualize and apply their own beliefs, identity and self-authorship allow one to draw up previous experiences. A mixed study review by Mathews, et al. (2017) on the needs and perceptions of special educators uses the power of stories to help develop understanding of their role.

Although the research on the self-efficacy of paraprofessionals and other support personnel is limited (Stocker, 2009), some studies exploring special education teachers’ self-efficacy have found that it directly influenced teaching decisions (Ruppar et al., 2015), that those with stronger self-efficacy spent more time and effort working with special education students (e.g., Gibson & Dembo, 1984; Woolfolk-Hoy et al., 2009) and were overall more effective educators (e.g., Johnson-Harris & Mundschenk, 2014; Kuronja et al., 2019; Malinen et al., 2012).

Special Education Teachers

It is not possible to paint the “Teacher Shortage” issue with a broad brush. The teacher labor market is inconsistent in multiple ways from state to state (Peyton & Acosta, 2022). While there may be a surplus of teachers in some curricular areas (secondary Social Studies and English), there is a significant dearth in other areas such as science, math, English as a Second Language, and Special Education (McDole & Francies, 2022) and this shortage disproportionately affects special educators of color (Myrie et al., 2024). There is also an issue with attrition. According to a recent UNESCO Report on Teacher Shortages, the lack of qualified teachers has profound consequences on a global scale. “Between 2015 and 2022, attrition rates of primary education teachers doubled around the world from 4.6 to 9 percent. Regardless of the country’s income level, and even remuneration, teachers are leaving the profession within the first five years of practice” (Unesco, 2023, p. 2). This leads to a lack of a stable teaching community, and results in significant cost to districts in recruiting and training new teachers each year. It also prevents students from being taught by highly qualified individuals with the required licenses for their positions.

Paraprofessionals as Special Education Teachers

A review of recent research on paraprofessionals indicates the knowledge and experiences they bring to the teaching experience are notable. Despite many challenges they face in training, what must be emphasized are the funds of knowledge that paraprofessionals possess and how their resilience, multilingual wealth, and emotional maturity could be viewed as resources (Abbate-Vaughn & Paugh, 2009). The current paraprofessional workforce is composed of 39% people of color, whereas only 18% of special educators are people of color (Billingsley et al., 2019; Bisht et al., 2021; Shelton & Cruz, 2023). TOC often leverage their cultural and linguistic funds of knowledge to teach and interact with students from historically marginalized backgrounds in culturally and linguistically affirming ways (Abbate-Vaughn & Paugh, 2009; Kohli & Pizarro, 2016; Kulkarni & Chong, 2021; Moll et al., 1992).

However, Etscheidt (2005) found that many paraprofessionals are performing duties that are well beyond their training. Armstrong (2010) suggests that the lack of training not only affects paraprofessionals’ effectiveness negatively but also is detrimental to students’ learning outcomes (Giangreco et al., 2010). In a study using semi-structured interview, Mason et al. (2021), found that paraprofessionals had a lack of knowledge and understanding of their roles in the classroom, had a lack of training, and felt devalued for the knowledge and experiences they did bring to the classroom. Matthew’s work suggests paraprofessionals express a need to feel respected by school personnel, students, and parents (Brown & Stanton-Chapman, 2017). The idea of receiving acknowledgment for their work was associated with special education paraprofessionals’ effective work and job satisfaction and found that 40% of the respondents reported a lack of respect and acknowledgment. Roy’s (2023) research found paraprofessionals are aware that their identity based on prior experiences may conflict with current school cultures and cultural norms. As a result, strengths of paraprofessionals also may not be acknowledged (Abbate-Vaughn & Paugh, 2009) nor have they received adequate professional development learning opportunities (e.g., coaching focused on the identification and reporting of behaviors for students with disruptive behaviors) for the important roles they play in their schools and classrooms (Bronstein et al., 2021).

Role Conflict and Special Education Teachers

Researchers (Billingsley et al., 2009; Mastropieri, 2001) note that special educators experience significant role problems, including overload, conflict, and ambiguity (Billingsley, 2004; Gersten et al., 2001). Studies in Sweden (Klang, et al., 2016), Britain (Rosen-Webb, 2011), and Israel (Lavian, 2015) have all documented the complexity of special educators’ roles and the ways in which this complexity contributes to stress. In an examination of job design and stress, Gersten et al. (2001) found that special education teachers’ stress was strongly influenced by role dissonance. Billingsley (2004) highlighted the disillusionment that beginning special educators (BSEs) experience after entering the field. The fragmented design of the job, which requires special education teachers to spend much of their time engaged in tasks other than instruction (Bettini et al., 2015; Rock & Billingsley, 2014; Vannest et al., 2011) creates a discrepancy between what teachers believe about their role (i.e., their primary function is to instruct children with disabilities) and the reality of their job (e.g., paperwork, meetings; Gersten et al., 2001; Vannest et al., 2011). Questions about special education teachers’ roles are connected to other stressors, including context and student characteristics. For beginning school educators these stressors interact with policies, school-based norms, and cultural expectations to develop BSEs’ conceptualization of their professional role.

This combination of role confusion, task overload, lack of training and insufficient support contributes to the overall problem of SECA satisfaction and retention. It is imperative that a residency model directly address these issues if it is going to contribute to overall higher levels of attrition.

Context

The UTRP addresses both the teacher shortage and issues of educational equity and involves a collaboration between institutions of higher education (IHE) and local education agencies (LEAs) to recruit, train, and retain quality teachers in high-needs urban schools (Patrick et al., 2023). The context for this study is a well-established Urban Teacher Residency partnership between a university, a national nonprofit teacher residency training organization, and large, urban school district. The partnership has existed for 10 years, three of which have been supported by a TQP grant from the U.S. Department of Education. The Residency Program prepares elementary, middle, secondary, physical education, visual arts, and special education teachers to enter the workforce. Students are referred to as residents and begin full-time coursework at the university (four courses/quarter) for four academic quarters plus a December intersession (two courses), beginning in the summer and culminating in the spring. During the academic year they are placed in diverse classrooms with mentor teachers in the school district to complete their residency, while completing evening and Friday courses at the university. Residents gradually assume increased responsibility for instruction in the mentor’s classroom as the year progresses. They graduate at the end of the academic year with a master’s degree in education and a Professional Educator License after successfully completing coursework and their student teaching experience. The residency model guarantees them a teaching position in the district upon graduation. They apply for any open vacancies in the district and are required to serve for 4 years as a Teacher of Record in exchange for the stipend and reduced tuition they received during the Residency Year. As of today, 149 residents have completed the program in the first two cohorts supported by the TQP grant, with 109 residents on track to graduate in the next cohort at the time of this authorship. Preliminary data suggest that 89% of resident alumni are still employed as Teachers of Record with the district today, which is slightly higher than the national average of 84% of public-school teachers who stay at their schools (NCES, 2024).

Data Sources

To explore the influence of SECA residents’ prior experiences, the research team used an iterative approach informed by the grant’s existing focus group interview protocol. The grant team chose to utilize focus groups as they allow participants to share their rich experiences and unique, authentic perspectives, particularly for underrepresented groups (Rodriguez et al., 2011). The focus groups ranged from 28 min to 1 hr and 16 min, with a mean of 56 min. The first focus group was conducted by a graduate research assistant who had knowledge of the grant, UTRP, and students. The second and fourth focus groups were conducted by the first author, and the third focus group was conducted by the first and fourth authors. Only one focus group was conducted in person and the remaining focus groups were conducted on Zoom to accommodate resident schedules. The groups occurred during after school hours. No compensation was provided. This semi-structured interview protocol was administered within the four focus groups and included questions that probed how residents’ prior experiences informed their confidence, instructional preparedness and ability to navigate classroom dynamics. This structure allowed for deeper exploration of themes emerging from the broader program effectiveness evaluation.

All focus group participants indicated having prior experience as SECAs. The first set of focus group interviews was conducted in spring 2024 with the grant’s Year 2 cohort of SECAs and were held as residents neared completion of the year-long UTRP experience. The team conducted the additional two focus groups in fall 2024 as the grant’s Year 3 SECA residents were beginning residency experience.

Participants

Participants for this specific qualitative study were drawn from the larger cohort of resident students enrolled in the UTRP program during the 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 academic years. From this group, the team identified residents with prior experience working as SECAs as its target subgroup. This purposive sampling approach ensured this study centered on program residents with relevant lived experiences in the education system prior to entering the UTRP (Creswell, 2014).

Of the 182 residents enrolled within the program over the 2 academic years, 24 Special Education Residents indicated prior experience working as a SECA. Out of the 24 total SECAs, 14 (58%) participated in one of the four focus groups held in spring 2024 and fall 2024 (see Table 1). Five of the eight residents in the 2023–2024 cohort (63%) participated in a Spring 2024 focus group, and nine of the 16 residents in the 2024–2025 cohort (56%) participated in fall 2024. The average age of participants was 40 years old (range 25–54), female (13 participants), African American or Black (12 participants) and Hispanic or Latino (two participants). The participants had a range of grade level experiences and a mean of 2.7 years; most had 1 year of experience (n = 8) and a majority had 4 years or less (n = 12) as a SECA.

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Table 1.

SECA Demographics, Spring and Fall 2024.

Participant	Age	Race a	Gender	Years of experience	Grade Level
Spring 2024 Groups
Participant 1	43	Black or African American	Female	4 years	k-8
Participant 2	41	Black or African American	Female	1 year	High school
Participant 3	54	Black or African American	Female	10 years	High school
Participant 4	30	Black or African American	Male	2.5 years	High school, 10th and 11th grade
Participant 5	30	American Indian or Alaska Native, White (Hispanic)	Female	4 years	k-2
Fall 2024 Groups
Participant 6	29	Black or African American	Female	1 year	k-2
Participant 7	39	Black or African American	Female	1 year	first, second, sixth grade
Participant 8	35	Black or African American	Female	1 year	kindergarten
Participant 9	50	Black or African American	Female	5 years	Pre-k
Participant 10	54	Black or African American	Female	1 year	first grade
Participant 11	50	Black or African American	Female	1 year	fifth grade
Participant 12	37	Black or African American	Female	4 years	3 years Kdg and 1-year high school
Participant 13	25	White (Hispanic)	Female	1 year	High school
Participant 14	44	Black or African American	Female	1 year	k-2

a

Race reported in table as residents reported in residency application.

Data Analysis

Data analysis began with a thorough review of interview transcripts. The first set of focus groups in the spring had transcripts that were a total of 31 pages and the second set of focus groups in the fall had a total of 44 pages. Each team member thoroughly read and took notes on potential areas of significance. The team then collectively developed a preliminary codebook based on the study’s conceptual frameworks and Matsko and colleagues (2020) domains of teacher preparedness. This deductive approach allowed alignment between the grant’s broader program evaluation data and this study’s emerging insights. Simultaneously, the team used an inductive coding process (Saldaña, 2021) to capture unanticipated themes, particularly those related to SECA residents’ unique experiences and pathways into teaching.

After codes were applied across all transcripts, the team grouped related codes into broader thematic categories (Braun & Clarke, 2006) and analyzed patterns across codes to identify any recurring ideas or experiences that aligned with the research questions. For instance, codes related to strategies used by SECA residents to overcome challenges in the classroom were grouped under themes such as problem solving or teaching strategies. A secondary review of the emerging themes including revising the original coded excerpts to affirm the themes were grounded in the data (Miles et al., 2014). Any overlapping or redundant themes were merged, and themes not in alignment with the research questions were discarded.

This process was both data-driven and theory-informed, ensuring that emergent themes reflected residents’ lived experiences and contributed to existing literature on residency programs and teacher preparedness. The team paid special attention to any differences in confidence, instructional adaptability and classroom management noted by SECA residents, especially as these residents perceived of these differences between themselves and their classmates without SECA experiences.

The team revisited transcripts to verify that themes accurately represented residents’ perspectives and were not overly influenced by researcher assumptions. At this stage, we also identified subthemes within existing codes to capture nuances within these broader categories and refined themes to ensure clarity and alignment with the study’s research questions. This stage involved naming themes in a way that reflected residents lived experiences. Examples of these emergent themes included:

To enhance reliability, multiple researchers independently coded a subset of transcripts. They met to discuss and refine the emerging codebook and identify patterns within the codes. The analysis emphasized patterns related to SECA residents’ perceptions of their preparedness and confidence, particularly as they noted in comparison to their peers without similar prior experience. The team also employed member-checking and shared its preliminary themes with focus group participants to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the researchers’ interpretations and analysis. Finally, review of findings by individuals associated with the UTRP program and TQP grant, including evaluation consultants, provided additional triangulation and ensured consistency and mitigation of biases within the research team.

Researchers’ Positionality

The research team brings several unique perspectives, as each member has varied levels of participation with the cohorts of SECAs who were involved in the research. The first author, Anne Butler, has been teaching courses in the UTRP since the partnership began in 2015 and has been a member of the TQP research grant team. She is also a faculty member in special education and was a former special educator in the district where the SECAs are completing their residency. She acknowledges that as a White woman of privilege, she has been provided access to resources that impact her view on the UTRP. Her experiences as a first-generation college student, a former special educator in the same district and working closely with the residents in special education cohort helped provide a deeper understanding and context of the journey the SECAs are navigating during the residency.

The second author, Barbara Rieckhoff, was one of the co-primary investigators on the TQP grant, teaches in the educational leadership program and has prior experience as a P-12 special educator and principal. As a White woman of privilege, she acknowledges that her identity and worldview may have been shaped, in part, by her own access to resources and opportunities. However, many years of experience as a special educator, principal and university faculty have informed her understanding of the unique identity of the special education teaching assistant and how they are situated within the hierarchy of a teaching and learning community. The third author, Roxanne Owens, is a faculty member who teaches in the elementary education residency cohort program but is not involved in the special education SECA courses. This author is a White woman with a 40-year career in urban education, eight of them teaching in a middle school, the rest at the university. As a component of her position, she regularly spends time in the partner schools of this program observing preservice teachers, supporting new and mentor teachers, and providing professional development resources. While this gives her a familiarity with the environment the paraprofessionals in this study worked in, she did not interact with any of the participants in the special education cohort. Her analysis of the data were based on the results themselves. The fourth author, Jordan Humphrey, was the other co-primary investigator for the TQP grant and provides oversight for grant and program evaluation and student learning assessment. As a White woman and first-generation college graduate with more than 20 years of experience in program and curriculum design, student learning, and assessment, her personal and professional journey has shaped how she approached this research and interpreted the SECAs residency experiences. Her development as an educator and scholar and path toward self-authorship has challenged me to critically examine how identity, privilege, and access shape both educational outcomes and how we come to understand them. This developmental lens informs her sensitivity to the complex intersectionality between identity and learning, particularly within structured educational environments. Her role as primary evaluator of the program’s TQP grant positioned her largely outside the day-to-day experiences of the SECA residents, affording her a degree of reflective distance that helped minimize my personal bias within focus group facilitations and data analysis. She acknowledges that her positionality, shaped by both systemic privilege and the challenges of navigating higher education as a first-generation student, inevitably influences her interpretations, yet her research and evaluation approaches remain grounded in critical inquiry, humility, and a commitment to honoring participant voice and lived experience.

RQ1: What Background Knowledge and Skills do Experienced SECA Paraprofessionals Bring to the Urban Teacher Residency Program and How do They Influence Success?

Throughout the focus groups, the SECAs discussed several different areas of background knowledge and skills that they brought to the UTRP. There were two main themes of the different types of assets that the SECAs reported bringing to their UTRP including, (a) instructional assets, and (b) professional assets (see Tables 2 and 3). Each of these assets is reported in further detail below.

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Table 2.

Instructional Theme: Subthemes of the Background and Knowledge of SECAs.

Subthemes	Examples	SECA resident narrative
Adaptive planning	Anticipating student needs from prior experience, adjusting instruction	. . .we saw a lot of students just suffering in the classroom and falling between the cracks, and not getting that support, so the acting out. It’s like when I would get them like, “Okay, well let’s do your work together.” And it’s like, “Oh, well this kid is calm. They’re getting help, they’re getting assistance, they’re getting some accommodations to their learning environment.”
Facilitating independence	Maintaining high expectations for students, providing support so students can do things on their own	But as I was reading the material and going through the videos and the information, they[students] do not want to be excluded, they want to be included. So I had to change my way of thinking, like I said, my heart was in the right place, but that’s not what they want.
Managing student behavior	Modeling practices they observed while SECAs, choosing different behavior management practices than previous observations, developing relationships with students	Just being in that classroom, we had many children with autism and so a lot of the times they had just her behavioral issues, not being able to just properly manage their emotions. And so there was lots of screaming and hitting. Through that, I was able to learn how to manage those kinds of behaviors, and those are a little more extreme behaviors than what I typically see now. But being able to handle that, I was able to easily transfer it now. They understand there’s a behavior expectation and they meet it. Like my mentor is warning me to watch out for, “You have to make sure they have their IDs on.” Listen, where I’ve been, are you kidding me? That’s the least of our worries. They have an ID. So, I mean, yeah.
Student observation	How to collect data, observing students’ needs, ensuring data were collected to inform IEPs	And just being able to see how the goals change based on just how they taught and the data they received like they get out of it. And putting that into the IEP. I would document more, and I did document, but not to the effect I wanted to. I wasn’t able to produce as much data when I was complaining about something, when I had no proof of it. And so I now know collecting their work and monitoring instances

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Table 3.

Professional Theme: Subthemes of the Background and Knowledge of SECAs.

Subthemes	Examples	SECA resident narrative
Engaging and collaborating with families and colleagues	Establishing effective partnerships, communicating often, coordinating with colleagues on learning	I can say that I think there has to be organization and collaboration with all the SECAs for future use just so that everybody can be on the same page
Tailoring IEP meetings to make them accessible	Own experiences and unfamiliarity with the IEP process, helping parents understand IEPs	[previous experience]. . . that informed how I look at it from the lens of being in the [URTP]. And that’s why I can say, the first few meetings that I participated in, “Hey, this is a violation of this parent’s rights. They didn’t receive the IEP 72 hours in advance.”
Navigating hierarchical relationships	observed disrespect of SECAs, felt they were not in charge, did not want to appear insubordinate when asking their mentors questions, recognized the hierarchy of paraprofessional and teachers	But for the most part, it seems like SECAs are not valued as much as teachers, I guess because we are teachers, and we aren’t degreed, and everything like that.
Awareness of individual limitations	Recognizing areas within the IEP they did not know well, given too much responsibility or an over assumption of what they could and could not do	The problem with that is that I said it several times, I’ve said it to my mentor and I’ve said it to my program director, “I’m really concerned that I’ve not written an IEP.” I’m going to be at a huge disadvantage next year and I keep getting told it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen. Am I going to get to do it once, because I need to do it a bunch of times to feel confident when I’m doing it in my job next year.

RQ2: How Does the SECA Experience Influence the Formation and Development of Teacher Identity?

The authors of this study draw on three distinct frames/constructs to understand the SECA experience as it relates to identity. The SECAs first identified the funds of knowledge they bring to the residency program and then reflected on how this knowledge helped form their pre-professional identity (see Table 4). Magolda’s (2007) theory of self-authorship highlights how past life experiences shape and influence the pre-professional identity of first-year preservice teachers. Drawing upon sense-making theories (Matthews et al., 2017), this study examined how special education teachers make meaning of their identities and in doing so, shape their professional self.

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Table 4.

Self-Authorship; Role Meaning Making Theme: Subthemes of the Background and Knowledge of SECAs.

Subthemes	Examples	SECA resident narrative
Background knowledge	Knowing how a school works, how to navigate a school helped them be prepared from the beginning, prior experiences provided a level of comfort	Well, to be honest, me being a SECA for that first year, it made me very comfortable coming into the program. If I hadn’t had that experience that first year, I wouldn’t have known what I was getting myself into, and I would’ve been, I don’t know, a little nervous, a little fearful about what to expect, but being a SECA really helped set the tone for what I was up against, and it helped.
Integrity as a teacher	Wanting to provide high quality instruction, do better for the students	Low expectations, and I guess borderline inappropriate conversations or having phone calls during class, lots of stuff like that. Not paying enough attention to the students. It was just not taking seriously enough for me. It was infuriating at times, honestly.
Identity and teacher voice	Discussing the art and science of teaching, learning from experiences to identify and use teacher voice, thinking about new responsibilities	Like I said, all of this is new to me. Maybe that’s why we’re undervalued a little bit, because we didn’t have this education before. And some of the things we were doing not knowing, you just get a license to be a paraprofessional, you don’t really have any training really behind it. Some of the things that we were doing, we didn’t know we were doing, until we start taking a class. It’s like, “Oh, that’s why they wanted us to do this this way. That’s why we were doing it this way.” You know what I mean?
Cultural and linguistic diversity	Can relate to students in culturally competent ways, developing a commitment to equity and serving all children	I think maybe having something other than a PD, because I feel like that’s not long enough to address culturalness in classes, excuse me, because I was on [district] website. I like to read a lot of statistics and know what’s going on. And even though I think it’s like 48% of people that are employed are African-American, majority of the teachers are not. And I was wondering why is it such that disparity who are also multiracial or come from poverty and stuff.

Implications

The results of this study provide implications for residency programs, special education residencies and working with paraprofessionals in Grow Your Own (GYO) programs to leverage the unique funds of knowledge they bring to the program. It is worthwhile to continue supporting the residents with previous SECA experience in developing their teacher identities. Teacher educators can create opportunities for discussions and reflections of their experiences to make connections and sense of their experiences (Botha et al., 2023). Residents expressed awareness of what they knew and what they needed for continued growth; thus, university and other district personnel can and should provide targeted opportunities to help them connect and comprehend the meaning of their work.

Future Research

There are several aspects of future research to consider, based on the findings of this study. First, how do we shape a curriculum that tailors the unique life experiences that preservice teacher residents bring to the classroom? For the residents to develop a strong teacher identity, the learning outcomes during both their coursework and clinical experience should be tailored to their needs, like multi-tiered systems of professional development to support teachers (Samudre & LeJeune, 2023). The participants discussed how they collaborate with fellow co-residents who were also SECAs to develop a mutual understanding, and a formal process could benefit them to deepen their learning. Second, the residents in this study demonstrated the ability to make connections between their prior experiences and current learnings to make sense of their new roles. Future research should explore if these funds of knowledge help with role conflict and overload as they begin teaching (Bettini et al., 2015; Rock & Billingsley, 2014; Vannest et al., 2011). Third, as suggested by Gist et al. (2019), it is important for scholarship to explore the types of learning support needed by TOC to improve practice. Fourth, future research also needs to consider the nuances that paraprofessionals bring to the residency program, if their previous paraprofessional experiences influence retention, and how teacher residencies are being implemented (Chu, 2022). Paraprofessionals in this study and in others reported feelings of disrespect and inequality. Those feelings can have an impact on prior self-efficacy, and it is worthwhile to determine if those feelings continue into the formation and identity of a new role of teacher. J. Day et al. (2024) found that residency programs associated with IHE may align more closely with research-based practices because of the extended amount of time spent in clinical placements, pedagogy coursework, and additional mentoring throughout the residency year. This has promising implications for recruiting and retaining TOC, as these programs are the pathways preferred by non-traditional and diverse teacher candidates.