Organizational Demography in Complex Interactive Service Work: Racial Composition Effects on Teachers’ Satisfaction and Turnover

• In Event: 413 - Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work Refereed Roundtable Session. Table 01. Culture and Organizations
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 06. Inequality

Abstract

This study builds on organizational demography literature, specifically the work of Renzulli et al. (2011) and Mueller et al. (1999), to investigate the research question: What are the effects of teacher faculty composition and teacher-student racial mismatch on teachers’ work outcomes of satisfaction and turnover? Using unique survey data of 285 high school teachers across two school districts at two points in time, and fractional, ordered, and multinomial logistic regression methods, I examine the effects of teachers’ relationships with racially similar or dissimilar colleagues and students, as represented by combinations of racial match and mismatch. Consistent with status characteristics theory, I find evidence that teachers’ perceptions of student quality mediate the relationship between composition effects on job dissatisfaction outcomes for black teachers working with a majority of black teachers and black students, and composition effects on leaving outcomes for white teachers in this same context. Consistent with group threat theory, I find that composition effects for white teachers working with a majority of black teachers and black students on job dissatisfaction outcomes are mediated by school conditions of resource inadequacy, which may affect satisfaction through a heightened sense of competition with other, out-group teachers for those resources. Interestingly, coworker support did not act as an intervening variable between composition and work outcomes, which is inconsistent with organizational and relational demography theory.

Author

• Jennifer Lauren Nelson, Emory University