Handbook on Teachers' Work: International Perspectives on Research and Practice

by Nina Bascia (Editor), Rhiannon M. Maton (Editor)

Overview

The Handbook on Teachers’ Work brings together research and evidence-based authoritative writings from across the globe that explicitly theorize and study teachers’ work.

Drawing on research from 12 countries across six continents, the chapters are grouped into themes that represent key issues related to work from global perspectives, including:
• The Political and Policy Contexts of Teachers' Work;
• Teaching as an Occupation;
• Diverse Teacher Identities and Roles;
• Teaching as Collective and Relational Work; and
• Teaching and Activism.
The volume explores the idea of teaching as an occupation with a history and trajectory that are shaped by political economies; historical progressions; organizational structures; social relations among educators, students and others; teachers’ career and labor patterns; their professional norms; and raced, gendered, classed and culturally linked expectations of teachers and about public schooling.

This essential handbook will be of interest to teacher educators, policymakers, and students and researchers in the fields of Teachers’ Work, Curriculum Theory, Educational Policy and Politics, Foundations of Education, Multicultural Education, and Teacher Education.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781040417607
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/23/2025
Series:	Critical Perspectives on Teaching and Teachers' Work
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	520

About the Author

Nina Bascia is Professor at the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, Canada.

Rhiannon M. Maton is Associate Professor at the State University of New York at Cortland, USA.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to the Handbook Section 1: Policy, Governmentality, and Teachers’ Work 2. Beyond Policy Promises: Performance-based Accountability in Education and its Side-Effects on Teachers’ Work Across the Globe 3. Racial Capitalism and the Politics of Class Size and Delivery Mode: A Survey of Secondary Teachers in Ontario, Canada 4. Teachers’ Work and School Material Culture: How Teachers Configure the Role of Collective Didactic Devices in Argentina 5. Teacher Unions and Policy-Making in South Africa: Exclusion, Contestation and Collaboration 6. The Governance of Teaching During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case of Ontario, Canada 7. Policy Agency and Advocacy as Teachers’ Work in the USA Section 2: Situating Teachers’ Work in Broader Contexts 8. Pursuing the School as a Workplace: The Policies and Practices that Support and Sustain Teachers Over Time: A view from the USA 9. Mentor Teachers’ Perspectives on Mentoring Preservice Teachers in Chile 10. Striking a Balance: Examining the Interplay Between Teacher Empowerment and Teacher Accountability in U.S. Schools 11. Teachers’ Work: Lessons Learned on Three Continents 12. The Globalization of the Teacher Workforce Section 3: Teachers’ Diverse Identities 13. Conceptualizing Teachers’ Care Work in the U.S.A.: Lessons from Black Women and Trans- and Non-binary Teachers 14. Uncomfortable Hierarchies and Structural Constraints: Teachers as Middle Managers of Paraeducators in the USA 15. Revisiting Gender and Class in Urban China: Undervalued Work of Migrant Teachers and Their Resistance 16. The Hazards of "Positive Organizational Environment": Racialized Emotional Labor and Work in Teachers' Lives in Canada Section 4: The Collective Work of Teachers 17. Teachers and Their Colleagues in the United States: 50 Years Beyond "Schoolteacher" 18. Relationships of Knowledge and Practice: Teacher Learning in Communities 19. Social Justice-Oriented Educators’ Collectivist Organizations in Canada and the U.S.: A Typology 20. Teachers' Professional Authority and Bureaucratic Control : The Case of Professional Learning Communities in the United States Section 5: Teaching and Contestation 21. Teacher Activism as Teachers' Work: Perspectives on Teachers' Work in Social Movements and Unions Across the Americas 22. Making Black Lives Matter at School: Educators Working in Solidarity for Black Lives in the U.S.A. 23. Navigating Terror and Trauma In A Conservative-Controlled State:
A 2024 Dispatch from Anti-Oppressive Public School Educators in Iowa, U.S.A. 24. Toward Equity-Centered Teaching in a Centralized, Meritocratic System: A Tale From Singapore Section 6: Final Words 25. Teachers’ Worth 26. Final Words