Term of Award

Fall 2018

Degree Name

Doctor of Education in Curriculum Studies (Ed.D.)

Document Type and Release Option

Dissertation (open access)

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Department

Department of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading

Committee Chair

Delores Liston

Committee Member 1

Meca Williams-Johnson

Committee Member 2

Ming Fang He

Committee Member 3

Regina Rahimi

Abstract

My dissertation inquiry builds upon the works of Nancy Hoffman (1977/2003), Madeleine Grumet (1981, 1988) and Dana Goldstein (2014) to examine the enduring effects of the feminization of teaching on the profession. My research question asks, “How do former teachers describe the emotional, social-political conditions that contributed to their exit of their teaching in public schools?” Utilizing narrative inquiry as the methodology, I interviewed four teachers who recently left the profession. I also collected archival data to provide the history and context of teaching.

This study provides a detailed account of what teachers face daily in their classrooms and schools to illustrate the factors that have the biggest impact on job satisfaction and teacher attrition. The experience of my participants are categorized into three related themes: support, teacher morale, and the physical and emotional manifestations of stress. The overarching theme that developed illustrates how the experience of all teachers, both male and female, are affected by the feminization of teaching. The feminization of teaching propagates the subordinate status of teachers. This inquiry illustrates how most educational reforms and policies recycle the same issues from the past centuries, perpetuating an oppressive environment for teachers and negative perceptions of teachers and public schools.

OCLC Number

1085541872

Research Data and Supplementary Material

No

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