Dead wood or untapped expertise? Intergenerational knowledge brokerage in school teams.

As the European labour market is characterized by a large outflow of older employees, the ability to retain knowledge of employees close to retirement potentially becomes a key feature of successful schools. Whereas older teachers are described by some as 'dead wood', workers who have little potential and a low level of performance, others argue that the explicit and implicit knowledge of the workers close to retirement is largely underestimated. The current scientific knowledge base fails to present conceptual and empirical work on how schools can capitalise on the knowledge of teachers close to retirement. The concept of 'intergenerational knowledge brokerage' (IKB) focuses on the facilitation of sharing knowledge between knowledge demands and knowledge supply over generations. Besides describing the current processes and results of intergenerational knowledge brokerage this study also explains differences in intergenerational knowledge brokerage . It distinguishes between three sets of influencing factors: individual teacher, team and school characteristics. A carefully designed multi method approach is used. The ecological validity of the conceptual framework is guaranteed on the basis of a literature study and a Delphi study. In the quantitative part of the empirical phase, written surveys are organized in a representative sample of 80 Flemish secondary schools. Alongside this survey, 6 in-depth case studies provide qualitative data on intergenerational knowledge brokerage in subject teams between teachers that are close to retirement and the other teachers. Data are gathered using logbooks and semi-structured in-depth interviews. Additionally, a network perspective will enrich the qualitative understanding of intergenerational knowledge brokerage in the selected cases.

Keywords:KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT, INTERGENARATIONAL KNOWLEDGE BROKERAGE

Disciplines:Education curriculum, Education systems, General pedagogical and educational sciences, Instructional sciences, Specialist studies in education, Other pedagogical and educational sciences