Through a unique material consisting of mail correspondence between a group of Swedish teacher graduates and their former teacher educator - starting in 1993 - continuing for more than 15 years and followed up by additional questionnaires and interviews, we face the opportunity to follow 87 teachers during their first 20 years after graduation. The study is an attempt to fill up what has often been pointed out as a gap in research on teachers’ career trajectories - the need for qualitative longitudinal studies. Data has been collected on nine occasions. The percentage of answers is extremely high (83-100 %). The project is funded by the Swedish research council.

In the presentation we focus on the teacher’s attrition the first five years. The teacher’s trajectories during this period are described with the help of mixing quantitative data with individual narratives. Data from the cohort has also been put in relation to general statistical overviews on teacher attrition. The analysis indicates that we should be cautious when we interpret and make use of general statistics. Teacher attrition seems to be a more non-linear and complex phenomenon than what is often presented. Drop-outs are in many cases temporary. Individuals are leaving from, but also returning to, the profession over time and their out of school experiences can in many cases be understood as individual initiatives to enhance teacher ability in the long run.