"We Feel Politics": Exploring Wisconsin Teacher Identity Making in Discordant Times

• In Event: Fight the Power: Intersections of Teachers Lives With Policies and Politics

Abstract

This study explores how elementary teachers in eight schools across Wisconsin construct teacher identities through the context of state and local political discord after intense political battles around Wisconsin Act 10, which undermined teacher unions and reduced school funding. Utilizing a poststructural, discursive approach, we conducted qualitative thematic analysis of 82 interviews. We found Wisconsin teachers 1) expressed fear, hurt, and struggled to navigate community resentment towards teachers, 2) described feeling caught between public expectations that teachers should solve complex social problems and that teaching is easy, 3) evidenced unease making meaning of their careers through conflicting logics of care and sacrifice and rational, economic political logics that called these values into question. We suggest implications for exploring teacher identities.

Authors

• Elizabeth E. Blair, University of Wisconsin - Whitewater

• Helen Rose Miesner, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Maria Velazquez, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Annaliese Grant, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Chiara C. Packard, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Lyn C. MacGregor, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Eric Grodsky, University of Wisconsin