How do teachers come to care? Jim Reid HUDCRES (Huddersfield Centre for Research in Education and Society)  

Context Institutional ethnography of a primary school during a period of ‘notice to improve’. The problematic, the focus on care arose immediately on entering the school. Joan Tronto’s (1993) argument for a political ethic of care. Use of a narrative method involving 4 readings of the data – ‘The Listening Guide’ (Mauthner and Doucet 1998) including ‘I’ Poems in data analysis.

Norma’s poem I spent all weekend preparing and doing and redoing If I had just done What I normally do I would have been fine I reached breaking point I didn’t want to let anybody down. I put the pressure on myself I just got into such a stress I didn’t do myself any favours I was completely dedicated I wasn’t actually noticing that things were going wrong at home I didn’t even notice I did notice to some degree but it kind of wasn’t my priority I was thinking I have got too much school work to do I think suddenly I thought, “hang on a minute, what’s important here?” I think teaching is that kind of job I was doing

Reading 1 – what’s the story being told? The first part of IE Awareness of her history Awareness of the material relations at work and at home (and elsewhere) Awareness of herself as care giver Awareness as care receiver

Regulatory texts in action:

Political boundary Manifest in the policies and processes of a marketised education system and performativity. The neo-liberal political agenda provides a powerful discourse in framing teachers are care givers. Teachers as care receivers is also framed in terms of the contract and policy – outcomes, progress, employability… - and therefore; Activation of the mediating discourse

A moral boundary

Moral boundary The need to be good, at least. Better to be outstanding. Policed through a regulatory framework. The dread of Ofsted! Teachers are care givers and care receivers, however the care received is defined from those removed from its intimate relations, and therefore; From their position of ‘privileged irresponsibility’ (Tronto 1993).

Personal boundaries Teachers care. Performing less than ‘good’ frames teachers as ‘bad’ care givers However, this is not ‘bad’ care but a struggle between a performative demand and their wider consciousness of care. The masculinist ethical narrative permeates teachers’ emotional labour so that their wider consciousness of themselves as care receivers is silenced. The embodied care receiver struggles to be heard.

References Mauthner, N.S. & Doucet, A. (1998). Reflections on a Voice-Centred Relational Method of Data Analysis: Analysing Maternal and Domestic Voices. In Jane Ribbens & Rosalind Edwards (eds.). Feminist Dilemmas in Qualitative Research: Private Lives and Public Texts. London: Sage. Tronto, J.C. (1993). Moral Boundaries. A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. London: Routledge. Additional reading: Tronto, J.C. (2010). Creating Caring Institutions: Politics, Plurality, and Purpose. Ethics and Social Welfare, 4 (2), 158-171.  Tronto, J.C. (2013).Caring Democracy: Markets, Equality and Justice. New York: New York University Press.