Abstract
Special education teachers’ career experiences span entry pathways, role enactment, professional meaning and strain, and institutional support, yet these dimensions are often studied separately. This qualitative study examined how 19 full-time special education teachers understood and connected these aspects of their careers. Participants included 17 women and 2 men with 2–33 years of teaching experience, each employed at a different public special education school. The schools were located predominantly in northern and eastern China, with fewer in coastal southern cities. Semi-structured interviews were analyzed using qualitative content analysis with inductive open coding and iterative abstraction. Three themes were generated: making special education a viable career; enacting professional capacity through role; and navigating meaning, demands, and support in special education work. Participants retrospectively linked career entry to the alignment of value-based commitment with viable employment pathways; they described professional capacity as enacted through specialist, pedagogical, rehabilitation-oriented, and relational work; and they discussed sources of professional meaning, occupational demands, and support needs in relation to development opportunities, recognition, and institutional support. Across participants’ accounts, personal commitments, professional role enactment, relational work, and institutional conditions were intertwined. These findings suggest areas for professional learning and workforce support and raise questions for future research on teacher well-being.