Breaking the silence : Voicing teachers’ exposure to identity-based exclusionary processes at workplace

• The study explores thirty compulsory schoolteachers’ experiences of exposure to exclusionary behaviour and comments by fellow colleagues, students, or their legal guardians at the workplace. Using analytic terms exclusionary processes and intersectionality, and by interviewing teachers who have experienced exclusion due to norms concerning gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race, and religion, I will answer following research questions: How do teachers experience exclusion and how does it affect them? What makes exclusion at workplace possible and how can one act on it? Of particular interest is subtle exclusion, as it is hard to detect and has been neglected be professionals and Swedish researchers, despite the evidence of high rate of occurrence and negative psychological, social, and professional consequences. Theoretical inspiration comes from research on intersectionality and microaggressions in the workplace. The study is based on interviews with teachers, who have volunteered to talk about their own experiences of exclusionary processes. The interviewees, working in different educational settings, define, describe, and are asked to problematize and contextualize exclusionary processes that affect them. The study shows that the interviewees are subjected to exclusionary processes because they do not occupy normative position in the local context. Gender-based exclusionary processes are often interdependent of several identity-based power differentials that may or may not operate simultaneously (for example age, gender, ethnicity and educational background or whiteness norms, religion, and gender may intersect each other, reinforcing or weakening different power axes). Additionally, the interviewed teachers express that there is a lack of institutional support for change, highlighting the importance of developing analytical tools to understand and eventually tackle subtle exercises of exclusionary power. Nowhere in the analyzed empirical material has there been talk of attempts at collective action where the teachers join or themselves organize social movements and act collectively, even though, according to Bonilla-Silva (2018), these forms of resistance make the largest impact in terms of changing social structures of exclusion. The lack of collective action and institutional support highlights the need for a paradigm shift.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Genusstudier (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Gender Studies (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

mikroaggressioner

arbete

uteslutning

lärare

akademi

skola

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)