Navigating Teacher Agency,Empathy,and Disability Discourses in Schools: A Reflexive Thematic Analysis of Autistic Teachers’ Perceptions of Work Experiences in the United States

Abstract

Background:

Research on autistic employment has often focused on quantitative indicators such as employment rates and type of employment. Currently, there is only minimal research on autistic teachers’ experiences, and most of this work was conducted in the United Kingdom. We sought to understand the perspectives of autistic teachers in the United States on their employment experiences.

Methods:

We conducted interviews with eight employed, licensed-diagnosed or self-identified autistic teachers working in U.S. schools. We asked teachers about their work experiences, including whether they were satisfied with their employment, barriers they faced, and strengths they brought as autistic teachers. Interview transcripts were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis.

Results:

Our analysis generated four themes. First, we found that participants perceived a general disrespect toward the teaching profession; such attitudes may have specific negative impacts on autistic teachers and their ability to enact teacher agency. Second, participants expressed that their unique contributions to supporting neurodivergent and other students were often circumvented by neuro-normative expectations, which manifested in a lack of empathy from non-autistic colleagues and school leaders. Third, our participants reported that non-autistic colleagues participated in disability discourses that reflected ableist assumptions and a lack of knowledge about autism, which led to fears about disclosing their autistic identities. Fourth, some participants reported positive changes in their work experiences, when other school professionals and leaders were willing to be supportive.

Conclusion:

The perspectives of our autistic teacher participants reflect hope for cultural changes that would allow for them to thrive in the teacher workforce. However, there is much work to do to enact these changes; non-autistic teachers and school leaders need to be aware that they have autistic colleagues and make specific efforts to accommodate their needs and resist ableist assumptions about autistic teachers’ potential contributions to the profession.

Community Brief

Why is this an important issue?

Although previous research has shown that there are autistic people in the teacher workforce, we do not know much about their experiences or how to support them. It is important to learn more about the experiences of autistic teachers and this is especially true in the United States, as there has been very little US-based research on autistic teachers.

What was the purpose of this study?

We conducted this study to gather autistic teachers’ perspectives on their work experiences.

What did the researchers do?

We interviewed eight diagnosed or self-identified autistic teachers about their experiences, including whether they were satisfied with their jobs, if they faced any obstacles to doing their work, and their perceived strengths as autistic teachers. Then, we made transcripts of these interviews and used a process called reflective thematic analysis to group participants’ responses into themes.

What were the results and conclusions of the study?

We found that, similar to many teachers in the United States, our participants felt that the teaching profession was not well-respected by people who are not teachers. This lack of respect for teachers may have particular negative effects on autistic teachers and their ability to feel like they have a say in how they do their work. Participants also said that they felt that being autistic had benefits for teaching, but they experienced a lack of empathy from non-autistic teachers and school leaders who did not recognize their contributions. Non-autistic teachers and school leaders also talked about autism in a way that participants perceived as harmful, and made it hard for them to disclose that they were autistic. Finally, some participants reported that their school environments were supportive in at least some ways, which could indicate that there is reason to be hopeful that more positive changes could be made in the future.

What is new or controversial about these findings?

This study is one of very few studies to report on the experiences of autistic teachers in the United States. Although many people are aware that there are autistic students in schools, they might not be aware that there are also autistic teachers. Some people might not think that autistic people can be good teachers, but our findings suggest that, while autistic teachers face barriers in their workplace, they do have the potential to be good teachers.

What are potential weaknesses in the study?

There were only eight participants in our study and they were all White. Because of this, we did not learn about the experiences of non-White autistic teachers, and how they may be different from White autistic teachers.

How will these findings help autistic adults now or in the future?

These findings will help school districts change their culture and policies to be more supportive of autistic people and reduce barriers to their participation in the teacher workforce. It will also help other teachers and school leaders better understand the important contributions of autistic teachers.

Keywords

autistic adults employment teachers reflexive thematic analysis

Introduction

The working lives of autistic adults

Much of the research on autistic adults’ employment has focused on characterizing narrowly defined outcomes such as the proportion of autistic adults who secure employment, the nature of that employment (e.g., whether it is competitive employment), and intervention strategies to improve employment and retention.¹ These are critical research areas, but there has been less attention to understanding autistic adults’ perceptions of their work experiences. Perceptions of working conditions, including job satisfaction and career identities, offer necessary context to understanding autistic adults’ employment-related well-being, which is likely influenced by a more complex array of factors than whether they are employed and how much they are paid.²

Historically, the suboptimal employment outcomes experienced by autistic adults, including unemployment and underemployment, were considered to stem from impairments associated with being autistic.¹ That is, autistic adults’ outcomes were considered worse than nondisabled adults and adults with other disabilities because of their perceived lack of skills, expertise, and potential to succeed in employment. As such, many research efforts have been extended to better prepare autistic adults to transition into the workforce, to increase the extent to which they are equipped with marketable skills desired by prospective employers.³

The growing influence of neurodiversity frameworks has shifted the focus from individual impairments to systemic barriers faced by autistic people, such as ableism, when attempting to secure and maintain equitable employment.⁴ Neurodiversity frameworks posits that autism is a natural form of human variation consisting of both strengths and challenges; autistic people should be granted support and acceptance; and change efforts should be focused on removing barriers to full social participation rather than coercing autistic people into suppressing autistic ways of being.⁵ Pellicano and colleagues⁶ apply Nussbaum’s capabilities approach⁷ to well-being, to conceptualize autistic thriving as including the achievement of a range of life functions, such as practical reason, affiliation, and agency over one’s environment. This work invites expanded inquiry into, and theorization about, autistic adults’ experiences of employment, including the extent to which it is conducive to autistic thriving or simply a means to achieve predetermined adult milestones.

Autistic teachers

The teaching profession has the potential to offer interesting insights into autistic adults’ work experiences, as it represents a profession that most people across the globe interface with at some point in their lives. In addition, teachers—including autistic teachers—have an important role to play in the lives of autistic students, who require that their teachers have specialized knowledge about autism and how to adapt their teaching to meet the needs of autistic students.⁸ A subset of literature on autistic employment has focused specifically on autistic teachers. StEvens’ narrative review⁹ of four empirical studies (primarily conducted in the United Kingdom), which included three case studies, a larger survey study, and one autobiographical chapter, suggests that autistic teachers experienced positive and negative impacts from workplace disclosure of their disability status; regarded being autistic as associated with strengths and challenges related to being a teacher; were able to draw on their former experiences as autistic students to enact inclusive pedagogy; and were negatively impacted by a lack of understanding of autistic teachers’ experiences among school personnel. Wood and Happé¹⁰ provide the largest study on autistic staff in their survey of 149 autistic current and former school employees in the United Kingdom. They found that schools generally did not provide necessary accommodations to support and retain autistic staff. School sensory environments (e.g., noisy corridors, fluorescent lighting) and unpredictable schedules were considered difficult to navigate. Some participants felt that the combination of an overwhelming environment and lack of accommodation contributed to mental health issues and exacerbated burnout, and these findings were expanded in subsequent qualitative studies.^11–12 Additional work conducted with teachers in Poland shows that autistic teachers in this context experienced similar barriers as teachers in the United Kingdom, including sensory unfriendly environments, difficult to manage social norms, and abrupt schedule changes.¹³

Teacher burnout occurs when teachers become mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted such that the important work of teaching is no longer meaningful or fulfilling.^14–15 Autistic adults can also experience burnout unrelated to their specific professional roles, which could stem from pressures to mask their autistic traits, and could be related to an increased risk of depression.^16–17 As such, autistic teachers may be more likely to experience burnout than either non-autistic teachers or autistic non-teachers. In a more recent study, Newson¹⁸ used qualitative methods to examine experiences of teacher burnout and flourishing among five autistic educators in the United States. She found that autistic teachers can experience a combined effect of autistic burnout and teacher burnout that had significant implications for their mental health, and led some to leave the teaching profession.

Teacher agency

Critically important to the professional lives of teachers is the extent to which they are able to enact teacher agency, which is teachers’ “active contribution to shaping their work and its conditions.”¹⁹ Teacher agency involves teachers’ goal-oriented influence over their teaching contexts, but is also constrained by those contexts.²⁰ Agentic teaching has been conceptualized as involving individual-level attributes and actions such as purpose, a teacher identity, professional philosophy, autonomy, and reflexivity,^21–22 which interact with the contexts in which these attributes are fostered (or not). Teacher agency may buffer experiences of teacher burnout and increase teachers’ motivation to improve their teaching and contribute to the development of their schools.²³ Indeed, autistic school staff have expressed that their feelings of agency mitigated the negative impacts of changes in their school environment.¹² Understanding factors that could prevent or reduce teacher burnout is important, as burnout rates are higher among teachers than other professionals,²⁴ and it has downstream effects on teacher retention and overall health,^25–26 and on student achievement.²⁷

The extent to which teachers develop teacher agency is influenced by qualities held by individual teachers, but it is also contextually embedded and emergent, and therefore not fully transportable between contexts.^19,28 That is, the same teacher will enact different degrees of teacher agency in different institutional contexts. Examples of individual qualities that influence teacher agency include teachers’ beliefs, training background, and perceptions of their work environment, while examples of social contextual factors include prevailing discourses about teachers and teaching, policy environments, available resources to support teachers and schools, and relationships with administrators.²⁹

Including disabled students and disabled teachers in school environments

Inclusive education is typically described as the design of contexts in which disabled students are educated alongside nondisabled students.³⁰ However, the inclusion of disabled teachers is rarely referenced in these descriptions. The focus on including disabled students—but not disabled teachers—is also reflected in school policies and practices.³¹ As such, disabled teachers report facing numerous barriers to their full participation in the workplace, which begin as soon as they enter teacher preparation programs.³² Once disabled teachers enter the teacher workforce, they experience physical barriers in inaccessible school buildings, a lack of accessible teaching materials, and negative interactions with colleagues and administrators.³³ Interpersonal factors are often described as major barriers for disabled teachers, who must contend with the typical workplace challenges alongside the risk of discrimination should their disabled identity become known.³⁴ In fact, many autistic teachers report that they are unable to disclose their disabilities to their school employers, because of discrimination risks underpinned by widespread beliefs among school administrators and fellow teachers that autistic people are not fit for the role.^9,13

Inclusive education has academic, developmental, and sociopolitical benefits for disabled students. As such, a preference for inclusive placements is reflected in the federal disability law in the United States and elsewhere.³⁵ However, many disabled students continue to spend all or most of their school days in segregated classrooms and schools.^36–37 Teachers exercise at least some agency over many aspects of schooling, including the extent to which schools function as sites of inclusion or exclusion.^21,38 As such, autistic students have described the importance of teachers in shaping their school experiences, and most autistic students have encountered teachers who play active roles in making them feel welcome and included, as well as teachers who contribute to their marginalization.³⁹ A greater number of autistic teachers could potentially benefit inclusive possibilities for autistic students, who may have important insights and lived experiences relevant for supporting autistic students’ academic achievement, development of self-determination, and other important school outcomes.

The current study

In this reflexive thematic analysis (RTA),⁴⁰ we sought to further understand autistic educators’ work experiences in the US context, by addressing the following research question: How do autistic educators perceive their work as teachers, in terms of their contributions and barriers they experience to doing their work? The Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research checklist and the interview protocol are available in the Supplementary Material. Examples of data analysis are available on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/yxekv/?view_only=61e5e44c988b4580a3bf571df715a0c1*).

Methods

This project was developed from a previously conducted project in the United Kingdom.^10,12 The interview protocol for the original study (which was slightly adapted for the current study) was developed from a study surveying autistic school staff.¹⁰ The original project was codeveloped by the research team and a committee of three autistic adults, and this was expanded to involve teachers in the United States (the current study) and Poland.¹² The committee of autistic adults was not involved in the analysis or interpretation phase of the current project.

Participants

Participants were recruited from webinars hosted by the Association of Autism and Neurodiversity and the social media platforms Facebook and Twitter (now X); information about the goals of the study and eligibility criteria was provided on these platforms. They were recruited if they met the following eligibility criteria: (1) older than 18 years, (2) licensed educator currently working in US schools, and (3) has a diagnosis of autism or self-identifies as autistic. Eight autistic (seven with formal diagnoses, one who self-identified) educators working in various school contexts at different career stages across the United States met the criteria and participated in the study (see Table 1 for demographic information; note that all names are pseudonyms). Four additional participants expressed interest in the study but did not meet the eligibility criteria.

Table 1.

Participant Demographics

Pseudonym	Gender	Diagnosed or self-identified	Age	Ethnicity	Race	Employment context-level	Employment context-type	Total years of teaching
Maria	Woman	Formal diagnosis	30	Hispanic or Latino	White	Middle school, high school	Public	6
Sam	Genderqueer/genderfluid	Formal diagnosis	47	Not Hispanic or Latino	White	Elementary	Public	14
Lisa	Woman	Formal diagnosis	51	Prefer not to say	White	Elementary	Public	4
Sally	Woman	Formal diagnosis	27	Not Hispanic or Latino	White	Elementary	Public	2
Debra	Woman	Formal diagnosis	57	Not Hispanic or Latino	White	Middle school, high school	Public charter	24
Curtis	Man	Formal diagnosis	54	Not Hispanic or Latino	White	Middle school, high school	Public	32
Catherine	Woman	Self-identified	47	Not Hispanic or Latino	White	High school	Public alternative/therapeutic	10
Riley	Nonbinary	Formal diagnosis	26	Prefer not to say	White	High school	District outplacement	5

Data collection

This study was approved by the Boston College Institutional Review Board. Participants signed electronic consent forms before participation and subsequently completed a demographic survey. From November 2022 to March 2023, the fifth author (a doctoral student researcher trained in qualitative interviewing) conducted interviews with participants via Zoom. The semistructured protocol included questions on topics such as job satisfaction, the experiences of being an autistic teacher, and on-the-job support. The full protocol is available in Supplementary Appendix S1. The length of interviews ranged from 40 to 120 minutes, and three participants provided additional information via follow-up interviews or emails. Participants received $20 electronic gift cards as compensation. To protect against fraudulent actors,⁴¹ we required participants to have their cameras on for at least a portion of the interview and checked IP addresses collected via the demographic questionnaire to ensure they were located in the United States; this led to the exclusion of a ninth participant. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim and in full.

Positionality statement

Throughout our research process, we considered how our positionality influenced our interpretation of participants’ narratives.^42–43 We are a neurodiverse group of female researchers with experience supporting autistic learners in various educational environments. Each of us has witnessed problematic educational practices rooted in ableist ideologies, which led us to embrace neurodiversity frameworks for understanding autistic people and their experiences,^44–45 and to conduct work with the potential to improve autistic people’s lives.

We take contextualist and constructivist epistemological stances in conducting qualitative research.⁴⁰ A contextualist epistemology means that our data interpretation is inseparable from our values and ideologies. Simultaneously, we were open-minded to unexpected findings when we generated themes.⁴⁶ As constructivists, we paid particular attention to the power of discourses,⁴⁰ such as how ableist language partially produced realities that autistic teachers live in. Neurodiversity frameworks and shared epistemological orientations brought us together as a team, aiming to use RTA to foreground participants’ narratives while drawing upon our own subjectivities.

Our RTA: An adapted six-phase collaborative process

We selected RTA as it was a good match for our study goals, and is an inherently flexible method. We adhered to RTA’s key assumptions and avoided common misunderstandings researchers sometimes have when attempting to implement this method,^40,47,48 while also leveraging the adaptability of this approach to fit our team-oriented research process. During data familiarization (phase 1), researchers reviewed the transcripts over a period of 2–3 weeks to get a sense of meanings and patterns expressed within and across participants. In the coding phase (phase 2), we systematically engaged in individual, open coding, which allowed for researcher reflexivity. According to Braun and Clarke,⁴⁰ “reflexivity involves a disciplined practice of critically interrogating what we do, how and why we do it, and the impacts and influences of this on our research.” In phase 3, we met biweekly to discuss interesting patterns across coders, and then engaged in team thematic mapping. This involved developing flexibly defined codes, and grouping them into candidate themes. The thematic map did not function as a code book in which codes were prespecified and predefined, but instead facilitated shared understanding across coders while still allowing room for change and continuous refinement. As suggested by Braun and Clarke,⁴⁰ we avoided generating topic summaries, which simply categorize participants’ responses under general topics (e.g., “autistic teachers’ strengths”). Instead, we generated themes that were undergirded by central organizing concepts, reflecting deeper analytic and conceptual meaning compared with topic summaries (see Table 2 for examples of themes).

Table 2.

Examples of Reflexive Thematic Analysis Processes: Quotes, Analytical Codes, and Themes

Example quote	Example analytic code^a	Theme
“We always had to be flexible. And to a degree, I am pretty flexible. But you know, of course, we wouldn’t have enough subs, so then they would involuntarily throw you into somebody else’s class and make you cover your planning.” (Debra)	A lack of continuity and certainty caused by messy work arrangement	Perceptions of constrained teacher agency and declining respect toward the profession
“I tried to advocate for him and mentioned that I have Asperger syndrome which is similar to what I thought he had, and like the kid was like obsessed with tacos and Cheetos, and they’re like, oh, so you’re assessed with tacos and cheetahs, too…They just had really harsh views on autism and children.” (Maria)	Feeling frustrated when colleagues don’t understand neurodivergent students	Autistic educators’ unique contributions undermined by neuro-normativity
“Uhm, I was at a different school last year, where it felt like, by being on the spectrum put a target on my back, and I was blamed for a lot of things that either were out of my control or they were just looking for a scapegoat.” (Sally)	Weaponized disclosure	Pervasive consequences of disability discourses
“Like it feels kind of frustrating, but like nice that like, now like because of COVID, like people with ADA disability can get an accommodation they were requesting like for years. Look now, everybody gets that…They are able to change and meet people’s needs but they don’t unless it’s convenient for them which I feel like certainly annoying.” (Maria)	Coworkers and leaders becoming more understanding of all teachers’ needs during the pandemic	Positive experiences: Traces of hope but reasons for caution

^aThe analytical codes under each theme are only examples that show one facet of the corresponding themes that capture richer meanings and larger patterns from the data (Braun & Clarke, 2021, 2022).

To further develop and review our candidate themes (phase 4), we recoded all the data and sorted them into themes again, in addition to revising themes by reviewing the coded extracts.⁴⁰ We used TA-Macro developed by Babbage and Terry⁴⁹ to code the full set of transcripts in Microsoft Word and transfer the coded data into Excel spreadsheets. We coded as pairs of researchers with ongoing memoing and discussions, which was followed by sorting codes into the candidate themes by one of the original coders, plus a third coder for each transcript. This recursive practice was to ensure that, first, based on a careful review of the entire dataset, the team reached consensus on the level of richness and broadness captured by revised themes. Second, it ensured that differences in coding and sorting across coders directed us to a deeper understanding and further refinement of the themes.

In phase 5, we shifted from a microlevel to a macrolevel analysis for theme refining and naming. We generated subthemes and defined our themes by reviewing them with corresponding codes to understand the overall structure of our analysis.⁴⁰ Codes sorted into more than one theme helped us analyze the intertwined relationships between themes. Refining and defining themes also helped us construct more informative theme names that best addressed our research questions. Following Braun and Clarke’s recommendations,⁴⁰ we generated themes and subthemes mostly to reflect core experiences shared across participants; however, we also attended to unique cases that were salient to our research questions because the importance of a theme does not solely depend on pervasiveness (e.g., frequency of codes). Finally, phase 6 involved careful writing and editing while still remaining open-minded to theme refinement throughout our coauthoring process.⁴⁰

Findings

Theme 1: Perceptions of constrained teacher agency and declining respect toward the profession

Educators’ evaluation and interpretation of material, cultural, and structural contexts of their workplaces play a critical role in the enactment of teacher agency.⁵⁰ These contexts consist of facilitators (e.g., adequate resources) and barriers (e.g., ineffective school administration). Across our dataset, negative work experiences shared by our participants took various forms, ranging from day-to-day obstacles to unsupported teaching philosophies. Many of these barriers were perceived by our participants as evidence of an “incredible amount of disrespect towards the profession” (Lisa). We constructed three subthemes to illustrate these problems: amplified teacher burnout in autistic educators, narrow expectations and assumptions about teachers, and school practices reflecting wider systemic issues.

Subtheme 1: Teacher burnout intensified by autistic burnout

While all educators face job-related stress caused by long working hours and loud school environments, our participants described how autistic burnout amplified teacher burnout due to a lack of continuity and a constant need to adjust to sudden changes at their workplace, both of which are influenced by a lack of communication from school and district leaders. Participants experienced a lack of consistency at different levels, leading to increased work stress. Corroborating prior work,^10,12 participants described ever-changing work schedules that were “thrown out” (Catherine) by school leaders. In addition, participants felt they were “shuffled around” (Debra), and that they got notifications “at the last minute” (Maria). Riley shared how she was “forced to teach” a class that she did not expect to teach: “It can either be a surprise…well, like I took over a robotics class, and I don’t know anything about robotics.” The extra challenge of dealing with uncertainty at their workplace put additional pressure on autistic teachers who tried their best to be flexible:

Plans change on a daily basis. Plans change on a weekly basis. Plans change on a minute-by-minute basis. We are a school that does not have the support that they need, and so I am forced to change often. I try really hard to be flexible, and I present that front of being flexible, and then I go home and crash and burn. (Sally)

The school district is huge and it’s a very big bureaucracy, and there are times…when it feels like things are being done to you as an educator or decisions are made and so I don’t enjoy any aspect of my job in which something is changing or something is implemented and there’s no explanation as to why. (Curtis)

Participants emphasized that it was not that they were unwilling to deal with sudden changes, which were expected in school contexts; in fact, similar to autistic teachers in the UK context,¹² many described excelling in adjusting to the new normal during the COVID-19 pandemic, a time of unprecedented unpredictability. They attributed some of the distress they experienced from uncertainty to having no “voice in the education setting or the system” (Lisa). Big changes were abrupt because teachers were not involved in the school- and/or district-level decision-making process, which is essential to teacher agency development and enactment. Autistic burnout also accumulated in the process of navigating unwritten social norms rooted in bureaucratic school systems. Participants expressed difficulty understanding school hierarchical structures, characterized by unclear expectations, red tape, and unwritten procedural norms. For example, Maria shared the confusion she experienced when she was a student teacher: “The school environment is very hierarchical, and people get really mad when you jump tiers, and sometimes I don’t know who I should talk to.” When asked if she would ever consider leaving the profession, Curtis told us that if she left teaching, “it would be burnout due to bureaucracy; burnout due to the amount of time spent on things that aren’t really to the benefit of the students that I work with. And each year that becomes a little bit more.”

Subtheme 2: Not a good fit in a cookie-cutter system

All participants shared that there were pervasive myths regarding what constitutes a good teacher. For example, Catherine shared that she did not “fit the pattern for a traditional teacher at a traditional public school.” According to our participants, assumptions about “good teachers,” such as being extroverted, well-versed in social rules, good at socializing, and highly flexible, reflect an overall declining respect toward teachers. Lisa discussed how schools discourage uniqueness and individuality: “When it comes to neurodivergent co-workers…I feel like sometimes there’s this expectation to be a certain cookie-cutter kind of teacher…it’s a cookie-cutter system.”

The unexamined expectations further contributed to an “unhealthy culture” (Lisa) of conformity. For example, several participants shared that they felt pressure to assimilate:

Like I almost feel like it resembles high school where there are these cliques, and there are a lot of people where you know the cool people are the people who conform to gender norms … act a certain way, and have a certain car. (Sam)

As Wood and colleagues¹² have shown, participating in social events can be stressful for autistic teachers who are expected to adapt to their non-autistic colleagues’ communication norms. Similarly, our participants experienced social pressure to attend gatherings held in crowded spaces such as bars, which could be challenging for autistic teachers. However, their needs and intentions were often misunderstood. Debra shared that sometimes coworkers seemed to “take it as a personal affront” and thought of her as “aloof or bitchy” when she “just wanna chill out.”

Similar to experiencing burnout, stereotypical assumptions about teachers can be stressful for non-autistic teachers, but they may be especially detrimental to autistic teachers. Our participants explained that because of the pressure to fit into the culture of the profession, they felt compelled to hide who they were and use specific social strategies to mitigate perceived social difficulties (e.g., “masking”). However, masking happens at the cost of authenticity and leads to emotional fatigue.^51–52 For example, Curtis shared how exhausted he became:

I mean it’s a boulder I carry every day. Every day…I would do a lot of accommodations for myself. I mean simple things to more extravagant things. I would… carry around a clipboard, or books, or something, so that I didn’t self-stim in public, cause it’s usually with hands and stuff…just thinking about it, I just get tired. I just get exhausted. (Curtis)

Negative experiences associated with a cookie-cutter system cut across the narratives of our participants at different career stages. This demonstrates that “good teacher” stereotypes are a structural problem not tied to seniority or years of experience. According to our participants, the pressure of “fitting in” started when they were preservice teachers, and their stories about toxic mentors who were discriminative and inflexible corroborate Strimel’s et al. systematic review³² of autistic teacher candidates’ experiences. Several participants also discussed how their career opportunities were limited because the hiring process foreshadowed the exclusionary culture they were expected to assimilate into. For example, Debra expressed her disappointment in “denied opportunities” during job-seeking when she felt “it’s more about how well you schmooze and not about how well you can actually do the job.” The challenges of fitting in and understanding social norms extend further into participants’ career development. Several participants mentioned self-doubt in their leadership skills. For example, Sally shared that “there’s not a ton of advancement in education in general, and I worry [about] me trying to become a team lead or becoming an administrator and any number of ways I would struggle with the colleagues.” Later in her career, Catherine worried about advancement, as she did not “have a linear career,” and her career “hasn’t progressed” because she “couldn’t stay in one place past a certain point” when her work became “overwhelming.”

Subtheme 3: Conflicts in philosophies of education

In addition to amplified burnout and stereotypes about teachers, our participants also contextualized their negative work experiences as reflecting the incompatibility between institution-level philosophies of education and their own. This conflict was first experienced at a material level. Similar to non-autistic special educators, our participants noticed unequal resource allocation and prioritization between general and special education. For example, Maria shared that she had “no supplies” or her “own space.” Similarly, Sally shared that her “kids or their behaviors” were not her principal’s priority. Their experiences illustrate the deprioritization of disability that extends to both teachers and students.^53–54

In addition to material constraints, participants experienced challenges in applying their teaching philosophy to their daily practices. For example, Curtis shared that “hands-on” and “project-based learning” were challenging under the fast-paced teaching requirements tightly tied to state standards: “A lot of times, especially with Common Core…You just get into this habit of checking off all these little individual skills and stuff, and you miss [that] education is about joy. The joy of learning.” In addition, Lisa expressed her concern about a lack of opportunities for students to learn about collaboration: “[The] education system was based on competitive competitiveness, not collaborative collaboration…people don’t know how to work together because they’re competing against each other. That’s a traditional education setting.” According to our participants, pressure to check off boxes for skill instruction and a highly competitive academic environment were associated with the current teacher accountability system and regime of standardized testing. For example, Sam shared that they were not “philosophically aligned with public education” because “the focus is on test scores and I’m more interested in helping kids feel comfortable in their skin, so they can learn effectively to become productive citizens.” In addition, Maria shared her experience in a “military-style school”: “It was…like boot camp…and they put so much pressure on us, and you had to turn in lesson plans…They are constantly watching you.”

Collectively, participants perceived dwindling respect for teachers and shared that their negative work experiences became barriers to establishing teacher agency. The amplification of teacher burnout by autistic burnout and the pressure of fitting into a narrowed profile of “good teacher” within a cookie-cutter system, which endorsed educational philosophies at odds with our participants, suggest that systemic barriers to teacher agency may be more constraining to autistic teachers.

Theme 2: Autistic educators’ unique contributions undermined by neuro-normativity

Despite feeling limited in teacher agency, our participants took pride in their contributions to inclusive education. Related findings have been reported elsewhere^12,13,55 but we expand on them here. We generated two subthemes to capture the following: How their personal experiences not only deepened their understanding of diverse students’ needs but also empowered them to serve as role models (Subtheme 1) and how, unfortunately, their efforts were frequently met with misunderstanding from non-autistic colleagues and administrators (Subtheme 2).

Subtheme 1: Neurodivergent empathy as necessary for inclusion

Many participants described how their personal experiences shaped their contributions as educators, particularly in understanding and advocating for neurodivergent students’ needs. Some participants were motivated by their own negative educational experiences due to a lack of support and understanding from their teachers. Participants were dedicated to providing neurodivergent students with the school experiences they wish they had access to. For example, Catherine described how she could recognize and support students who felt misunderstood: “I seem to understand the kids a little bit better, at least the ones no one seems to understand. I know things that other teachers often don’t.” These experiences allowed participants to have deeper connections with neurodivergent students and provide meaningful support tailored to their individual needs.

Participants also expressed willingness to make pedagogical and environmental accommodations and adaptations to ensure that neurodivergent students received adequate support. Curtis described his role as being “like a Rosetta Stone,” helping students “engage with the curriculum” and break assignments down into manageable steps. He also described his ability to make environments more accessible: “I can go into a class. I can see what kind of environmental obstacles there are… If a student is sitting over there, I can say no, this student should probably sit over here…The student will feel more calm. You’ll be able to address things with them quicker and easier.”

However, some participants found that their expertise was often limited to supporting neurodivergent students, even when they had qualifications and interests beyond special education: “I don’t think that being neurodivergent inherently makes you better at special education than other things, or that you should be.” Yet, some participants found themselves repeatedly expected to serve as the only experts responsible for improving an inclusive environment, often feeling “pigeonholed into it” rather than recognized for their broader skills and expertise. While some participants found meaning in supporting autistic students or advocating for accessibility, they also stressed that this work should be equitably distributed rather than falling disproportionately on autistic teachers. Some participants also described the isolating experience of being the only autistic staff member at their school, leading to a sense of tokenization. One participant explained,

I’m the only autistic person at my workplace. So it often feels like I am the token. Not that I was hired as a token, but more like, you know, like, ‘Oh, you know, let’s ask her.’ And I don’t know, it just feels good and bad sometimes that I feel like I’m the only autistic person on staff. (Riley)

This dual role of being both a resource and a representative of autistic experiences created mixed feelings. While participants appreciated being recognized for their insights, they also found it isolating to be placed in a position where they were repeatedly expected to educate others rather than simply be accepted as part of the school community. Riley pointed out: “I feel like I’m responsible for educating both students and staff about how to support neurodivergent people while also appearing like I’m competent at my job and a worthy person of being included in the school community.”

Subtheme 2: Lack of empathy from adults and conflict escalation

In contrast to the empathy our participants reported feeling for their students, they reported a lack of empathy extended toward them from school staff and administrators whose misunderstanding often led to conflict escalation at their workplace. For example, Debra recounted a particularly distressing experience in which a misunderstanding led to an extreme and humiliating response from school administrators. After standing up to an administrator regarding the unfair treatment of students, she was abruptly reassigned to a different grade level without prior notice. Frustrated by the lack of communication, she made a dark-humored comment, which was misinterpreted as a suicidal statement. Without any discussion or attempts to understand her intent, administrators called an ambulance, which escalated the situation to involving “an armed security guard with a gun.” She further shared, “I was just aghast. Why would they even think this? I wasn’t cursing, throwing furniture, or acting agitated. But there I was, being escorted out with a guard standing there as if I were dangerous.” She was taken to the hospital, where she was determined not to be “a threat.” The experience left her deeply shaken, resulting in “nightmares” and long-term anxiety. Catherine similarly described an instance where a workplace misunderstanding escalated unnecessarily. She shared that, without warning or requests for clarification, “The school president [sic] calls me into his office and starts yelling at me.” The abruptness of the situation left her feeling completely unprepared to respond: “I didn’t know how to defend my decision because I was just taken aback by the whole thing.” Instead of being invited to explain, she was met with immediate hostility from her administrator, which caused confusion: “Why would you be yelling at me about this instead of just asking?”

Our participants’ stories suggest that their words and actions were sometimes interpreted by colleagues in ways that did not align with participants’ intentions, and that, rather than seeking understanding, colleagues might escalate conflicts in problematic ways. These incidents of conflict escalation are the most striking consequences of misunderstanding. The “double-empathy problem” is relevant for understanding participants’ experiences, which describes how mutual understanding can break down between individuals with differing perspectives, particularly between autistic and non-autistic people.^56–57 Milton contends that neurodivergent people should not be solely blamed for miscommunication, since all parties in interaction contribute to mutual understanding. Indeed, empirical evidence has shown that non-autistic people often have biases and stereotypes that lead to misunderstandings across neurotypes.^51,58 Our participants’ experiences suggest the problem was not just that misunderstandings happened but that non-autistic colleagues had the power to interpret and define whether autistic teachers were psychologically or physically threatening, leaving autistic teachers with less autonomy over the unfolding of these interpersonal conflicts.

Theme 3: Pervasive consequences of disability discourses

Participants also described the impacts of how autism and disability were spoken about in schools, including how disability discourses served to perpetuate neuro-normativity and contribute to burnout. Many participants noted that talk in schools often revealed their colleagues’ lack of autism knowledge. For example, participants reported that those around them spoke about autism in problematic ways, inaccurately “link[ing] the student with autism and bad behavior” (Curtis) and suggesting that disabled students were “taking money and time away from everybody else” (Catherine). Statements such as these position autism and disability as inherently negative states, especially in relation to their supposed impact on other (nondisabled) individuals. In addition to discussing their colleagues’ ableist framings of disabled students, participants also reported that colleagues spoke about autistic people as a homogeneous group, rather than as individuals with unique personalities, interests, and needs. Talk that generalized autistic people also tended to infantilize autistic adults, equating their needs and interests with those of autistic children, a practice linked to broader societal messages about who can be autistic.⁵⁹

Some participants noted the irony of ableist discourse and the lack of disability knowledge within education and particularly within special education. One participant described a colleague who spoke about autistic people in a way they perceived to be judgmental, and recalled thinking, “as someone who’s a special education teacher, you should be a little bit more understanding and respectful” (Sally). Other participants pointed out that while special education is ostensibly designed to support disabled students, it is an environment where disability is frequently spoken about in deficit-based, medicalized ways, or intentionally not spoken about at all.⁶⁰ The prevalence of such disability discourse, one participant said, makes special education a fundamentally harmful place for autistic people to work: “I think it’s damaging to people who are disabled who have to do this work. Day after day after day, and nobody cares that they’re forced to be told how broken they are every day” (Catherine).

Workplaces where negative talk about autism and disability was commonplace, and even sometimes considered common sense, were described as having additional negative impacts on autistic educators and their students. As described in Theme 1, masking one’s autistic traits was identified by participants as a major contributor to burnout, and participants noted that the framing of disability and autism in their workplaces was a factor in their decisions to mask or disclose being autistic. For many participants, the ways in which colleagues and administrators spoke of autism fostered environments where openly identifying as autistic posed personal and professional risks. When participants described choosing to disclose despite these risks, they received responses ranging from unwanted sympathy to disbelief, and even outright judgment, all of which further reflect a lack of disability knowledge and understanding. When administrators and others in positions of power lacked autism knowledge, participants who disclosed being autistic reported receiving either no support, or offers of ineffective and inappropriate accommodations. For example, one participant’s principal suggested someone be placed in the classroom to provide “in-the-moment feedback on [their] facial expressions” (Riley).

The judgment and hostility participants reported experiencing from colleagues after disclosing were described as an influence on their future disclosure decisions. One participant described an “automatic switch” in how others treated them after learning of their neurodivergence (Lisa), and several noted that while they were sometimes willing to disclose other disabilities, such as ADHD, negative disability discourses suggest that autism is too stigmatized to be safely associated with as an educator. The risk of stigma or judgment resulted in participants living in “fear of being found out” (Lisa) and feeling “like [they] live in the closet….hiding part of [themselves]” (Sally). One participant described how problematic disability talk, in combination with the systemic issues that contribute to a lack of teacher agency and respect, could foster an environment where autistic educators who disclose risk being viewed as not contributing equitably:

Because of the judging. There are a lot of people out there, judging and worrying about equity, and they worry about, is this fair?…People are very concerned about workload and making sure everyone has a fair amount of workload…I do feel that people really have a hard time with invisible disabilities, that they don’t accept it as much as other disabilities. (Lisa)

Despite the prevalence of negative disability discourse in their workplaces, and the potential risks related to being identified as an autistic teacher, several participants nonetheless engaged in efforts to disrupt dominant narratives about disability. As April approached at one participant’s school, they chose to share their identity with the school community not only to encourage a shift from Autism Awareness to Autism Acceptance Month, but also to establish themselves as an authority who can shift the narrative about autism and disability: “I wanted to show that I’m not just a random person. I have knowledge and experience on this, and that’s why I’m stepping up and correcting this” (Riley). Instances of purposeful disclosure, which pushed back against neuro-normative barriers to autistic educators’ contributions, were common among participants’ stories, and were often spurred by the need to advocate for their students’ needs and interests.

Participants also described how a shift in disability discourse in schools could result in more openly autistic school staff who could then leverage their own expertise to support other educators in learning about autism, neurodiversity, and disability. As one participant described, “I’m open when I feel safe, and as I have more people around me who also are open and safe about it, I may be more likely to reveal [that I am autistic]” (Catherine). Several participants expressed a desire for neurodiversity training and professional education within their schools, which would ideally be led by those with lived experience. Although training may help to alter harmful disability discourses, and therefore mitigate some of the harm stemming from negative talk noted in Theme 2, designating autistic school staff as peer educators by default is potentially harmful in itself, and may require them to engage with dehumanizing narratives about autistic and other disabled people to justify their role in the school community.⁶¹ Ideally, according to participants, efforts to educate school communities about autism and disability would be “proactive rather than reactive” (Riley), highlight the existence of autistic adults and educators, and challenge ableist medical model conceptions of disability.

Theme 4: Positive experiences, but reasons for caution

While the narratives shared by participants predominantly reflected challenges, there were scattered instances of positive experiences. Even though the pandemic made teaching harder, increased teachers’ stress, and forced schools to adopt hybrid learning, many participants shared positive experiences that resulted from pandemic-era changes to teaching and learning. Some participants felt that the pandemic made administrators and colleagues more attuned to the challenges faced by both teachers and students. Maria noted, “The pandemic helped employers see the needs of people.” This shift in awareness led to noticeable changes in workplace culture, with some administrators taking a more proactive role in supporting staff. Sally recalled how a school principal demonstrated consistent efforts to check in on teachers: “Every day, at least twice a day, [the principal] would just come down and say, ‘How can I help you? What can I do for you? What do you need?’” Some participants also noticed that after pandemic closures, administrators became more willing to provide accommodations and acknowledge the importance of emotional well-being. One participant described this shift as a “silver lining” (Maria), explaining that schools began to prioritize mental health and emotional support for both students and staff. Riley noted, “School is trying to work on that by explicitly teaching and providing space and time for SEL (social-emotional learning).”

In addition, our participants reported that the pandemic prompted significant changes in flexibility and accessibility in their workplace. For example, Riley observed that providing options for different communication modalities became a norm during this time and that “it taught a lot of people that you can just send something in an email instead of having a meeting about it.” The increased reliance on technology during the pandemic also played a role in making education more accessible. Curtis noted that “certain computer applications and…curricul[a] online” became more widely used, enhancing instructional methods and expanding learning opportunities. For some participants, remote teaching was not just a necessity but a change that suited their work style. Maria shared, “And I actually excel at teaching remotely. I did extremely well. I was super organized.” Others found that these tools made communication with colleagues and parents more effective: “I would say that I’m much more savvy at using online tools and materials. I’m much more savvy at communicating to teachers and parents, and more consistently… it has benefited me in a positive way” (Curtis).

However, some participants expressed frustration about how accommodations that had been requested for years by neurodivergent teachers suddenly became widely available when they suited everyone’s needs:

People with ADA disabilities can get the accommodations they have been requesting for years. Look now, everybody gets that. Like, oh, you can have flexible hours? You can work from home. You can do all of these things. And before, they were like, ‘No, you can’t do that.’ But in the pandemic, they were like, ‘Oh yeah, everyone can.’ They are able to change and meet people’s needs, but they don’t unless it’s convenient for them. Which I feel is certainly annoying. (Maria)

These changes in flexibility and accessibility showed that schools were capable of adapting when necessary, as has been shown in prior research.¹² However, systemic change was often reactive to wider pressures rather than reflective of a commitment to meet the needs of neurodivergent teachers.

Discussion

Through RTA, we generated four themes to reconstruct eight autistic teacher participants’ perspectives on their workplace experiences in the US school context. First, their stories illustrate a perception that respect toward the teaching profession is on the decline, a perspective that is likely held by many teachers but may more significantly limit autistic teachers’ power to enact teacher agency. Second, autistic educators’ perceived contributions to supporting neurodivergent students were often undermined by manifestations of neuro-normative power relations, including a lack of empathy from non-autistic colleagues and school leaders. Third, they were subject to ableist disability discourses rooted in incomplete knowledge about autism, which were perceived to be harmful to neurodivergent students as well as our participants, who had fears about disclosure. Fourth, their descriptions of positive work experiences revealed traces of hope, indicating that positive changes were possible when other school professionals and leaders were willing to be supportive. An exploration of the relationships between themes is warranted to explore how the different layers of our participants’ work experiences were intertwined.⁴⁰

Our analysis extends the small body of existing literature on autistic teachers by linking the experiences discussed by the teachers in our sample with broader issues facing all educators, and with issues facing disabled teachers specifically. Standardized testing and teacher accountability are top-down tools that have transformed schools into controlling and normalizing spaces,^62–63 and our participants shared that they enacted limited teacher agency in a system characterized by constant surveillance. In addition, this environment is exacerbated by ableist disability discourses and a lack of understanding from colleagues and leaders. That is, our participants encountered a unidirectional fitting-in problem previously theorized by Milton⁵⁶: They were expected to fit in the system, while their local work environments and the hierarchy in which they were embedded failed to be a good fit to provide an inclusive environment for autistic educators who may be making irreplaceable contributions to inclusive education. Teacher burnout was thus intensified by autistic burnout,^64–65 which was evidenced by participants’ elevated emotional exhaustion and a decreased sense of identity and accomplishment.⁶⁶ When their authenticity was at risk,⁶⁷ participants shared that their social difficulties became heightened, leading to even more marginalization.

In light of our findings, we have several recommendations, many of which were also suggested by our participants. First, school leaders should take active measures to foster acceptance and appreciation of autistic teachers. We contend that this step will be necessary to achieve efforts already underway toward including disabled students. Second, several practical, procedural changes could be implemented that would improve conditions for all teachers, but especially autistic teachers, such as, providing sufficient advance notice of schedule changes except for emergencies; communicating clearly and respectfully, especially regarding implicit norms; assigning autistic teachers supportive and ideally neurodivergent mentors; organizing social events with neurodivergent people’s needs in mind; providing school- and district-wide teacher training to deepen school professionals’ understanding of autism and other disabilities; and cultivating neurodivergent school leaders. We do note that our and other researchers’ findings about the benefits and drawbacks of workplace disclosure of diagnosis^10,68 indicate that this is a complex choice, and adopting these recommendations could be less likely if school leaders are not aware that there are autistic teachers in their schools. However, implementing these recommendations using a Universal Design approach, in which school contexts are redesigned with autistic teachers in mind at the outset, would mean that important accommodations would be available without requiring individual teachers to disclose their diagnosis.⁶⁹

Limitations

Several limitations should be considered when interpreting our findings. First, our findings rely on a single source, teacher interviews, as we did not triangulate findings with other methods of data gathering. However, the epistemological assumptions of RTA emphasize meaning generation rather than information extraction,⁴⁷ and therefore, RTA does not always involve triangulation. Future research could extend our findings by using ethnographic approaches that incorporate richer data forms such as field notes and artifacts⁴² to provide a more complete view.^70–71 Such research efforts have greater potential for contextualizing participants’ emic perspectives.^72–73 Second, the researchers who analyzed the data did not interview participants, so we could not bring our “being there” experiences into our analysis as the conversational interview approach might allow.⁷⁴ Third, our sample size was relatively small for an RTA study and consisted of only White autistic teachers (reflecting the demographic composition of the broader teacher workforce in the United States). While our approach does not aim to provide findings generalizable across autistic teachers, more diverse participants could have provided a richer dataset from which to reconstruct themes. However, we note that, in the US context, autistic teachers are a difficult-to-reach population, as they are gatekept at multiple levels (e.g., teacher training programs, hiring, and retention) and may have felt it too risky to disclose their disability status, even with the promise of confidentiality. This may have been especially true for non-White autistic teachers. Fourth, we did not require that participants received a formal autism diagnosis; therefore, we cannot be certain that all participants meet the diagnostic criteria for autism. It is possible that our findings would have been different had this been part of our inclusion criteria. Finally, participants may have been drawn to our study because they wanted a forum to discuss negative (or otherwise emotionally charged) aspects of their work experience. We remind readers that, as a qualitative project, we do not make any claims about the generalizability of our findings and that these reasons for self-selection into the study should be taken into account when interpreting our findings.

Conclusion

Our autistic teacher participants are passionate educators who are making valuable contributions to their schools. The four intertwined themes indicate the complexity of their stories, with negative experiences and hope for the future. Rooted in systems, power relations, and discourse of disability, problems underlying participants’ challenges magnified each other. However, participants’ positive experiences demonstrate that there are solutions to those problems, and that change can happen. Future researchers, school practitioners, and policymakers should listen to autistic educators to empathize with their experiences and perspectives. As our participants contended, hiring and supporting neurodivergent school staff are an issue of equity and justice. All school professionals and leaders should reflect on practices and policies to resist ableism and promote positive systemic changes for a more just work and learning environment. We hope that inclusive and supportive school environments will allow more teachers to enter and thrive in the teaching profession, which will ultimately benefit both teachers and students.

Footnotes

Authorship Confirmation Statement

R.G. participated in refining the conceptualization of the study, refining the research questions and methodology application and adaptation, finding and supporting the application of the coding tools, leading the data analysis process, analyzing the data, writing the article, and editing the final draft. Y.S. participated in transcribing interviews, refining the methodology, analyzing the data, and writing the article. J.H.-W. participated in refining the methodology, analyzing the data, and writing up the article. S.L. participated in developing the interview protocol, transcribing interviews, analyzing the data, and editing the article. R.M. participated in conceptualizing the study, developing the interview protocol, interviewing participants, transcribing interviews, and editing the article. R.W. initiated and participated in conceptualizing and developing methodologies for the original study including ethics and research instruments, provided input during the process of data collection, reviewed and edited drafts of the article, and obtained funding from the John and Lorna Wing Foundation, UK, for the original study. K.B.-B. participated in conceptualizing and designing the study, writing up the article, editing the final draft, and supervised the research. This article has been given solely to this journal and is not published, in press, or submitted elsewhere.

Supplemental Material

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