The Limits of Teachers' Collegial Relationships

• In Event: 30.080 - Roundtable Session 10
  In Roundtable Session: 30.080-14 - Researching Empathy and Relations in an Era of Neoliberalism

Abstract

Teachers’ sense of obligation, or the binding responsibility to respond to the other, lends teaching its moral integrity but also takes an emotional toll on those who teach. Obligation is important today given education’s increased managerialism (Ball, 2003) and demand for accountability (Hursch, 2005). This has minimized the moral integrity in teaching, invoking feelings of self-doubt or anxiety, and resulting in teachers’ disengagement and attrition (Crocco & Costigan, 2007). Drawing on our interviews with teachers, we will elucidate teachers’ obligations to children within the limits of their collegial relationships exploring a) the relationship between obligation and collegiality; b) ones’ proximity to the child; c) teachers’ disobedience; and d) the importance of nurturing of a moral imagination.

Authors

• Melanie D. Janzen, University of Manitoba

• Anne Mary Phelan, The University of British Columbia