Since workforce is greying, increasing pressure has been put on many sectors, including the public sector, to raise legal retirement age. Nevertheless, older workers, and specifically teachers, usually retire much earlier. In the organizational and educational literature, most studies regarding later career have been applying a deficit perspective: reporting on senior teachers’ challenges and difficulties. Only a limited amount of studies considers senior teachers’ potentials, learning, and further career development. In this present article, we approach late-career teachers from a non-deficit perspective. This article aims to contribute to a better understanding of senior teachers at work, by analyzing HR practices that target them. Inspired by a strengths use perspective, we focus on end-of-career teachers’ knowledge and expertise exchange and their position within the school’s network. In particular, we conducted a comparative mixed-methods case study (interviews, social network analysis) in 2 secondary schools with a sample of 10 end-of-career teachers, 4 younger teachers, and 2 principals. The results illustrate that older teachers hold central positions in their workplace and have, in accordance with the socio-emotional selectivity theory, limited but strong bounds with colleagues. Moreover, school principals in both schools seem to benefit from older teachers’ organizational knowledge by involving them in decision-making processes. Nevertheless, results show that the principals in the 2 schools mainly apply remedial measures to deal with changes due to aging. This paper ends with some implications for school principals: Applying a non-deficit developmental approach is key for sustainable HR management in schools across the lifespan.

中文翻译：

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从孤立到互动：社会网络视角下老年教师在学校组织中的地位和与年龄相关的人力资源实践

由于劳动力正在老龄化，包括公共部门在内的许多部门都面临着提高法定退休年龄的压力。尽管如此，年长的工人，尤其是教师，通常退休得更早。在组织和教育文献中，大多数关于后期职业的研究都采用了赤字视角：报告高级教师的挑战和困难。只有有限的研究考虑了高级教师的潜力、学习和进一步的职业发展。在本文中，我们从非赤字的角度看待职业后期的教师。本文旨在通过分析针对高级教师的人力资源实践，帮助他们更好地了解工作中的高级教师。受到优势使用视角的启发，我们专注于职业生涯结束教师的知识和专长交流以及他们在学校网络中的地位。特别是，我们在 2 所中学进行了比较混合方法案例研究（访谈、社交网络分析），样本包括 10 名即将结束职业的教师、4 名年轻教师和 2 名校长。结果表明，根据社会情感选择理论，年长的教师在工作场所占据中心地位，与同事之间的界限有限但很强。此外，两所学校的校长似乎都通过让年长教师参与决策过程而受益于他们的组织知识。然而，结果显示，两所学校的校长主要采取补救措施来应对因老龄化造成的变化。