Neither Heroes nor Villains: Teachers' Struggle to Keep Commitment to Students Who Face Socioeconomic Adversity

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: Efforts to Support Students From Low-Income Backgrounds

Abstract

Through an in-depth study of forty-seven teachers, I examined how teacher commitment to students plays out under conditions of socioeconomic adversity. I theorized that commitment is the degree of educators’ determination to respond to student needs. Empirically, I distinguished how individual teachers perceive and respond to student needs in a context where students bring more needs than educators can handle. I analyzed whether conventional factors drawn from the literature are associated with teachers’ responses to student needs. The data showed that commitment appears as a trade-off between responding to needs and boundary-setting. Looking at attitudes and behaviors, four types of commitment are described: alienated, restricted, conditional, and boundless. Finally, the study offers attributes that allow distinguishing higher from lower commitment.

Author

• Miguel Órdenes, Universidad Diego Portales