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This chapter identifies the broad interdisciplinary ideologies of entitlement in order to situate and understand the potential theoretical informants of excessiveness in teacher entitlement. Although the authors' perspectives and experiences on the theme of entitlement are located in the US educational system, this is accompanied by an awareness of the need to examine the topic internationally since the topic needs to “be reconsidered in terms of contextual variables.”

Psychological and organizational entitlement were the prevalent strains of entitlement that emerged in the reviewed literature and “academic entitlement” specific to the field of education. Therefore, three strands, psychological, organizational and academic, form the thematic categories for this scoping literature review.

Most literature on “academic entitlement” deals with excessive entitlement amongst students. No reference to excessive teacher entitlement was found. However, specific gaps were found in: (1) what qualifies as excessive teacher entitlement, (2) research scholarship on teacher entitlement, and (3) entitlement studies specifically aimed at global reach and applicable to teachers.

The theoretical informants of teacher entitlement identified in this study indicate that the phenomenon goes beyond individual mindset to encompass the mediation of sociocultural and political factors in its construction, thus rendering a simple theory of excessiveness in association with teacher entitlement improbable at this time.

We started our exploration of the notion of excessive teacher/faculty entitlement with the metaphor of digging. In this final chapter, we assemble the major themes that the international scholars in this book unearthed. This comprehensive review helps us take stock of where we started (came from) and to position us where we are at. It also opens up for further consideration where we are going. A plotline emerges for thinking about teacher support in ways that eschew entitled feelings and promotes a beneficial sense of self-esteem, moral value and professional responsibility that needs nurturing as new challenges in the field unfold.

“Excessive teacher/faculty entitlement” is a nascent idea in teacher education. Ratnam chanced upon this notion of “excessive teacher entitlement” while trying to understand and find a language to characterize the perplexing paradox of teacher intransigence in the face of the adaptability required of them to address the intensifying issues of equity and diversity in this global multicultural world. The concept of the “best loved self” brought in by Craig as a perfect complement to “excessive teacher/faculty entitlement” helped them present the two in a yin-yang relationship. The authors in the five chapters of this section use the language of excessive entitlement to conceptualise and uncover the sources of oppression experienced by them in the situated dynamics of their institutional milieu. Their narratives tell how the naming of the phenomenon provoked them to become conscious of the presence of excessive entitlement in themselves and others accompanied by a liberating push towards realising their best loved self.

The notion of excessive teacher entitlement arose out of concerns with trying to understand and find a language to describe the paradox of faculty/teachers' intransigence in the face of the flexibility required of them to promote the learning and well-being of all in the institutions they serve. Through unique narratives, the authors trace the parallel paths they negotiated in their challenging curricular journeys, which led them to unmute teachers' voices cached in reform stories. The first author, Tara Ratnam, coined the term “excessive teacher entitlement” to characterize the putative deficit view of teachers that is projected onto them and how the concept of the teachers' “best-loved self,” which the second author, Cheryl Craig, developed, embraces teachers' input and complements “excessive teacher entitlement,” albeit from a different direction and perspective. This introduction also provides a bird's-eye view of the diverse ways and contexts in which leading international authors examine excessive teacher entitlement in the 17 chapters that follow.

A deficit view of teachers' daily practices and the message that teachers do not know how to teach diverse groups of students and need support is common. Excessive entitlement in teacher education is a topic that has been brought to the surface in somewhat a new way and from a new perspective. By using the term to conceptualize and uncover the sources of oppression, it is possible to understand educators' experiences in new ways. The purpose of this excessive entitlement research in the self-study-autoethnography-memory vein was to gain an understanding of teacher entitlement related to demands and pressures placed on teachers and teacher educators by different personnel as classrooms are becoming increasingly diverse.

Entitlement is a remote research topic in South Africa. Even further remote is the idea of teacher educator entitlement being a topic of academic inquiry. In this chapter, we report a self-study of a teacher educator's experiences and interactions with her students, in which the construct of entitlement was used as an interpretative lens. The data consist of narratives constructed from journal entries based on teacher educators' experiences collected over 12 years. Findings from this case study point to the prevalence of teacher educator entitlement, which manifests itself in different forms. Investigations need to be broadened to establish its reach and the underlying causes of entitled attitudes and behaviours among teacher educators, and how such behaviours impact professional practice and professional growth.

While “academic entitlement” focuses on student entitlement and its consequences, there is a need to be aware of the consequences of teachers' entitled feelings arising from their subjective perceptions on student learning. This micro-ethnographically oriented study uses the case of an eleven-year-old fifth-grade student's low academic performance at a Spanish primary school to unravel the notion of excessive teacher entitlement embodied in the social organization of schooling. A qualitative analysis of teachers' perceptions of this student's low performance showed that most of their opinions were subjective, based on their deep-rooted deficit view of students. These beliefs seemed to make teachers feel entitled to blame the student and her background instead of arousing self-reflection leading to self-realization and change in practice. The study points to teacher entitled feelings as a symptom of the wider sociocultural mores that make teachers assume the power to arbitrate without considering students' situated needs. This study draws attention to the need to help teachers become conscious of and analyze self-entitlement to enable them to base their decisions on reason rather than prejudice.

This chapter presents the lived experience of 10 doctoral students and recent graduates from a North American University, who like graduate students elsewhere, have faced upstream battles against excessive faculty entitlement. The six sections of this chapter, each by different authors, explore how entitlement in the University, is experienced from different perspectives. The first four sections explore the deleterious effects of excessive faculty/teacher entitlement which can lead to competitiveness, selfishness and aggression. Section five focuses on student entitlement as experienced by an immigrant graduate teaching assistant, and section six explores how both faculty and student entitlement may be experienced at different stages of the immigrant experience. It is hoped that this chapter will create a platform with which to highlight these topics for ourselves and other doctoral students attending other universities, so that relationships and opportunities may improve for everyone.

Our investigation of the emerging issue of teacher entitlement is viewed from the perspective of researchers trying to make sense of the concept with the intention of exploring its links to inclusive educational practice, teacher education and research. This chapter is therefore mainly conceptual, focusing on the limits and possibilities offered by the extension of the concept of entitlement, first relating to students, now extended to the teaching profession. The concept of entitlement is gaining currency principally in the Anglo-Saxon literature but should also be reconsidered in relation to contextual influences. In the educational field, debates denote several ‘displacements of concepts’, as shown in the extensive reviews and analyses of the concept of entitlement attitudes we undertake in this work. We first discuss developments and interpretations of the concept of entitlement specific to different disciplines in the literature. Then we undertake a contextual reframing based on a redefinition of the concept drawing on input from empirical research data, which emphasizes the challenges encountered when dealing with the phenomena of social cohesion, ethics and cultural diversity in education. The findings highlight the potential benefits of integrating the concept of teacher entitlement into valid strategies for implementing an inclusive and ethical educational process.

The right of individuals to particular privileges or benefits is a natural expectation in any workplace. Yet, the concept and practice of “entitlement” is especially crucial in faculties of education where preservice teachers are being prepared to be fully-fledged teachers. In this context, academic administrators shoulder the responsibility of supporting the “well-being” of faculty members. The purpose of this study is to investigate faculty members' experiences of being exposed to excessive entitlement through the faculty well-being lens. The study group is composed of seven faculty members working in faculties of education at foundation universities (universities funded by philanthropies) in Turkey. Faculty members' narrative accounts related to their exposure to excessive entitlement were analyzed within the framework of three dimensions of faculty wellness: (1) thriving, (2) struggling and (3) suffering. The stories shared in this chapter provide unique insights for faculty members and academic administrators about work–life balance, which contributes to a culture of well-being among student teachers and faculty members.