Paper Summary
Share...

Direct link:

Teaching in Niches: New Divisions of Teachers' Work in Online K–12 Schools

Fri, April 28, 12:25 to 1:55pm, Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, Floor: Ballroom Level, Hemisfair Ballroom 1

Abstract

Online education is often described as serving neglected categories of students, and thus filling formerly unoccupied niches in the education system – a way of ‘achieving equal educational opportunity.’ Using data from a study of 22 teachers across 10 virtual schools in Ohio, as wella as document analysis, and evaluation of media representations, this paper examines how the orientations of online K-12 schools towards such niches structure the work of teaching and shape teachers’ “occupational rhetorics.” Our overarching concern is with how such niche populations are discursively and institutionally produced, and how teachers come to shape and interpret their work in terms of these niche populations.

Authors