“Not Every Day Is Going to Be Wonderful”: Teachers’ Emotions Under Test-Based Accountability

• In Event: Roundtable Session 6
  In Roundtable Session: Educational Policy and the Everyday Lives of Teachers

Abstract

Accountability reforms intend to improve student academic outcomes by attempting to reshape and improve teachers’ practice. Yet, this reform movement neglects the emotional aspect of what it means to be a teacher. This qualitative study, which examines teachers’ work under accountability-based school reform, aims to contribute to the field of scholarship examining teachers’ emotions. This paper articulates how teachers’ negative emotions were heightened as they felt their own purposes were pushed aside, when their tasks seemingly lacked purpose, and when it was challenging to access the psychic rewards associated with teaching

Author

• Erin E Rooney, Temple University