Teacher Uneasiness and Workplace Learning in Social Sciences: Towards a Critical Inquiry from Teachers’ Voices

Abstract

The educational parameters of neoliberal schools have transformed traditional social expectations about teachers. As some authors have suggested, “teacher uneasiness” is an appropriate category of analysis to understand and interpret the effects that such expectations can have on teachers’ professional identity. In this research, autoethnography was specifically chosen as an investigative and, at the same time, formative modality, ideal for determining the way in which a Social Sciences teacher in Spanish secondary education experiences his own uneasiness. According to the information in the teacher/researcher’s diary, collected during fieldwork carried out over two years, and processed by content analysis, this phenomenon can be generated by causes that are still unnoticed in the existing literature. Specifically, we could identify up to four subcategories from the data itself: the weight of tradition; daily overexertion; no time; and resignation after wear and tear. We conclude with vindications both of the theoretical category used, and of the usefulness of autoethnography in this type of empirical project. In any case, we also recommend new research that allows us to compare and expand the results and conclusions obtained herein.

Keywords

• teacher uneasiness
• teaching
• Social Sciences
• workplace learning
• narrative methodologies
• research experience