Maneuvering Marginalization: School Health Administrators' Emotional Labor and the Reproduction of Inequity

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 8
  In Roundtable Session: Reflections on Social Justice Leadership

Abstract

School health administrators (SHAs) play a critical role in promoting student health and safety within school systems focused primarily on academic achievement. An earlier study found that district hierarchies marginalize SHAs, who then engage in emotional labor to “broker” support for student health programs. This paper further analyzes study data to understand why SHAs continue their work despite inadequate structural support and funding. Findings indicate that SHAs have created an ideological narrative of their work as valuable, needed, and rewarding, which motivates them to continue in their role, despite the disempowerment and frustration they experience. SHAs’ emotionally labor-intensive work processes, however, reinforce an educational system that fails to adequately address student physical and emotional health needs.

Authors

• Samantha Blackburn, California State University - Sacramento

• Ester Carolina Apesoa-Varano, University of California - Davis