Abstract
BACKGROUND:
Teachers can be at risk of exposure to psychosocial hazards. Improving workplace safety for teachers, within a ‘systems thinking’ context, should begin with understanding the work.
OBJECTIVE:
While much is known about what teachers do, little is known about how teachers conceptualize ‘work’. Knowing how teachers conceptualize ‘work’ provides a reference point for exploring attitudes towards work health and safety.
METHODS:
The paper presents a review of the literature, an overview of heuristic methodology describing and interpreting the lived experience of teachers as workers, and analysis of teachers’ accounts of work. The heuristic approach allowed the author to compare their lived experiences and perceptions as a teacher with the lived experience of teachers in the NSW school system.
RESULTS:
Teaching is work that is both rewarding and hazardous. It is argued that teachers draw on battle motifs, perceive a need for safety within a workplace context, and have an ability to conduct personal risk assessments.
CONCLUSIONS:
Findings from the study provided direction for the second phase of the project that is aimed at exploring the ways in which teachers conceptualize psychosocial work- related hazards and the extent to which they are visible in teaching practice and policy.
Introduction
The changing nature of work as researched in a wide range of academic disciplines has raised awareness of psychosocial factors “inherent in the enterprise” of work that may “pose a threat” to workers [1]. Work can involve psychosocial hazards that may impact negatively on workers’ physical, cognitive, and psychological health and well-being [2–4]. Musculoskeletal and mental disorders are prioritized for attention in the Australian Work Health and Safety Strategy 2012-2022 [5] with recognition that threats to workers’ health and well-being may not always manifest in chemical, physical, or biological form. A range of psychosocial factors may impact on a worker. This may include “interactions between and among work environment, job content, organizational conditions and workers’ capacities, needs, culture, personal extra-job considerations that may, through perceptions and experience, influence health, work performance and job satisfaction” [1]. Despite the recognition of psychosocial hazards in policy and legislation, there is evidence to suggest that these sorts of hazards are under-appreciated in the workplace [6–8] and by some professions more than others [8].
A range of stressors have been identified as having the propensity to increase the risk of psychosocial injury in a workplace [3]. This may include, but is not limited to, a lack of autonomy in decision making, management structures, interpersonal conflict, bullying and harassment, procedural fairness and sense of justice, workload, changes to workload, poorly managed change, management styles that are not consultative, fatigue, time pressures, cognitive demands, hours of work, high emotional demands, and group task conflict [2, 8–10].
In the context of the Australian education industry, which is the focus of this paper, much is done to ensure a safe working environment for Australian principals and executive staff [11]. Unsustainable workloads continue to impede teachers [12]. Previous studies have failed to recognize teaching as a unique, potentially hazardous type of work. This may be because teaching is not perceived as work because it is enjoyable. Activities perceived as enjoyable and useful as opposed to meaningless and ‘work’ move the teacher towards the higher goals of personal and academic development, personal transformation, and self-actualization [13, 14], which ultimately leads to positive outcomes for both the teacher and student.
Over the past 30 years, much like other professions [15, 16], the nature of teaching in Australia has changed in such a way as to reduce the time available to do activities that facilitate a transformation for students [11, 17]. Increased administrative and work demands, changing curricula, standardized testing coupled with neoliberal tendencies of increased levels of accountability, devolution and marketization [18, 19] can lead to teacher disenfranchisement and emotional exhaustion [20] with the perception that some parts of teaching are certainly ‘work’, and teachers are disempowered rather than empowered. Workload is an ongoing issue for teachers [11, 12]. However, it is only one of several psychosocial work-related hazards that can impact negatively on a teacher [1, 2]. These include work-related stress or other mental health issues, anxiety, fatigue, burnout, depression, cognitive overload [6, 20–23], and musculoskeletal pain [24].
Work is intrinsically linked to the activity needs of human beings. Therefore, its nature, design, management, the contexts in which it occurs, and the influence it has on workers is relevant to the field of Work Health and Safety [WHS]. As workers, whose core business is the education of students, teachers can be at risk of exposure to psychosocial hazards in the workplace [22]. An NSW Auditor General’s report [25] recommends that the efficacy of workplace health and safety strategies employed in the NSW education sector be considered to address rising costs associated with psychological injury. This strategy is logical because, in an industrial and legislative sense, teachers are workers and schools are workplaces. However, teachers’ work is rarely viewed through a WHS lens. As the literature review will demonstrate, psycho-social hazards have been identified in the teaching literature but are rarely discussed in these terms. This is important because labels matter. Using ‘workload’ as a shorthand for a range of psycho-social hazards masks industry and workplace obligations to provide a safe working environment for teachers (and, by extension students). This obfuscates the health-related impacts of work that teachers may experience.
The current study is unique in that it is the first to ask whether teachers perceive teaching as work. As a result, attention is drawn to negative psychosocial consequences that can result from the nature of the work itself and “ongoing conditions of the system” [26]. Approaching teaching as a unique type of risk work through a work health and safety lens is important for several reasons. First, it provides new insight into how teachers perceive, navigate, and manage work. Second, it acknowledges that as workers, teachers can be at risk of exposure to psychosocial hazards. Most importantly, it initiates a new conversation about the nature of teachers’ work, and the hazards inherent in an industry generally considered to be ‘low risk’ [5, 6].
Literature review
Defining ‘work’
Defining ‘work’ is problematic given the diverse ways in which the term is used, explained, understood, and analysed in the extant literature. It is synonymous with concepts as diverse as labor, industry, job, employment or occupation [27], career [28–31], calling and vocation [32], and profession [33–37]. It also has been explained or understood in terms of what it is not: leisure [27, 38], and home or family life [39], It has been described by what work means to and for individuals. In a post-industrial context, the changeable nature of work as a concept has been differentiated with terminology like ‘knowledge’ [40, 41], ‘emotion’ [42] and ‘intellectual’ [43]. The dichotomous nature of work, as both positive and negative human activity, is well established in the literature [44, 45]. Work can have tremendous positive mental health benefits [46]. Notwithstanding the diverse and often competing ways in which the concept of work has been used and explained in the literature, in its most simple form, work can be viewed as human activity. It can involve the expenditure of physical, cognitive, and emotional energy. It is a way that human beings use their time. These are some of the many frameworks through which teaching has been viewed as a unique form of human activity [12, 48]. Teaching [12, 48] occurs within a human activity system [49]. Teaching is emotion work [20, 50] that requires interaction between multiple stakeholders. Work is human activity that occurs within a social, cultural, historical, and political context.
‘Work’ as a means for fulfilling needs
The literature offers a range of ways in which different needs may be achieved through work. In simple economic terms, the concept of work as human activity aligns with the OECD’s definition of work as human activity that produces goods and services [52]. When viewing work from a socioeconomic perspective, concepts such as remuneration, employment, and the production of goods and services are at the center of focus [53, 54]. The notion of ‘earning a living’ can be associated with the second level of Maslow’s [55] ‘hierarchy of needs pyramid’ because remuneration can fulfil the need for stability and security. Remuneration does not appear to be a key motivational factor for new career English teachers in New South Wales [56] but it may for teachers in other contexts [57]. Intrinsic and extrinsic factors influencing teachers’ motivation have been extensively researched using a range of motivational models and theoretical perspectives [57–59]. The work of teaching has been framed in the literature in terms of motivation, lifestyle, and sociocultural influences [60] by using concepts like a calling or a passion [59].
Psychologists have wrestled with the notion that work could be a fundamental part of being human and it could fulfil human need [61–63]. Work not only has the propensity to fulfil an individual human need, but to enrich society. In noting “that humans create themselves and their world through work”, the concept of work takes on an ontological perspective [53]. The importance of ongoing reflection and evaluation of the meaningfulness of activities associated with work, and the contribution those activities make to society have been explored extensively [31]. Rosso and others’ [63] comprehensive literature review of work meaningfulness echoes Veit’s [64] notion of work as a paradox: it is both creativity and curse. Reward and hazard. Although a social constructivist lens has not been applied by Rosso and others [63] the review nevertheless serves as a significant reminder of the intricate and often complicated relationship that exists between human beings, the ways in which work relationships are organised, the nature of work, and the contexts in which it occurs. Much has been written about teachers’ knowledge for, in, and about practice [65]. Little is known about how teachers as an occupational sub-culture conceptualize ‘work’.
‘Work’ within the context of organisations
Teaching does not occur in a vacuum, but within an organisation involving multiple stakeholders with historical, social, cultural, and political contexts. Both the work and the organization operate within a neoliberal system. Antagonism or tension often results [17, 66–68]. Systems and mechanisms of governance influence the ways in which work is designed and managed [67]. Professional unions and government agencies have played important roles in raising awareness of issues affecting teachers’ health in Australia [6, 12]. There is evidence that schools have been viewed as complex social systems [69–72]. Few studies approach the health, well- being, and safety of teachers as a workplace issue. Fewer look through the prism of a systems’ thinking approach to safety management. This is not to say issues associated with teachers’ health and well-being are missing from the literature. Work related stress [73], work-related burnout, emotional exhaustion, and other negative health outcomes are well documented, and found not only in the education literature [11, 74–76], but also in other industries and academic disciplines [77–80]. The impact of emotional demands on teachers’ lives is well documented [6, 82]. Generally, there is a paucity of research about teaching, a unique type of work, through a work health and safety lens.
‘Work’ can involve psychosocial work-related hazards
Since the mid-1980s, there has been greater attention to psychosocial factors on a worker [10, 84]. The changing nature of work manifesting within and responding to an increasingly globalized, neoliberal context, has presented new emerging risks to workers’ health, well-being, and safety [1]. The World Health Organisation [2, 85], the International Labour Organisation [1, 86], and The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work [87], among others have produced evidence- based research acknowledging cognitive, organizational, and cultural factors that can impact negatively on workers’ health, well-being, and safety. Notwithstanding the complexities surrounding the interchangeability of concepts such as safety climate and safety culture [88], there is increasing evidence that psychosocial work -related hazards stem from processes or structures that are organizational in nature [87, 89]. Yet there is a tendency to rely on individual workers to identify and report hazards. Understanding how teachers perceive work is important because it may help to explain perceptions of education as a ‘low risk’ industry [5, 6].
Remarkably consistent evidence across a wide range of industries, suggests that adopting a systems’ thinking approach to safeguarding worker’s health, safety, and well- being can be effective in enhancing the process of continual improvement [90, 91]. Support for a systems’ thinking approach to continual improvement and ensuring worker safety is compelling when considering the impact of globalization and neoliberalism on the ability of organizations to achieve their aims [92].
Notwithstanding the contribution made by Riley [11] and De Cieri and colleagues’ [6], a comprehensive exploration of teaching as ‘work’, as viewed through a safety lens, is missing from the discourse. Given what is known internationally about psychosocial hazards, it is surprising that within the education industry generally and Australia specifically, little is known about psychosocial hazards. Little has been done to integrate teachers’ perceptions of work, identification of the psychosocial hazards inherent in teachers’ work or work system, and the school system’s capacity to recognize and manage psychosocial work-related hazards in teaching. The absence of this integration may be because perceptions of hazardousness can be shaped culturally or politically. For example, the absence of an education equivalent of a Chernobyl disaster or a Three Mile Island incident may provide some rationale for its exclusion as an occupation of concern, and therefore not a priority in the Australian Work Health and Safety Strategy 2012-2022 [5]. It is possible that education is viewed as a ‘safe’ industry because “we tend to believe that a system is safe –or not unsafe- when nothing happens” [93]. However, schools are increasingly unsafe as workplaces. This notion is supported by events at American schools, where teacher safety has been compromised in violent situations [94, 95]. Riley’s [11] study reveals increasing levels of offensive behavior has been experienced in Australian schools. This includes adult- adult bullying, threats of violence, and actual violence. Physical violence increased from 7 to 8.4 times the general population between 2011–2017 [11].
It is hoped that starting a conversation about the health and well-being of teachers as workers can safeguard their work environment, while still achieving the goals of the schools and society at large [96].
Research design and methodology
Those with experience, and those who are most knowledgeable, were used to explore the concept of teaching as work [97]. The feelings, perceptions, and thoughts of the participants were of interest [98]. Interviewing, or the ‘interchange of views’ [99] was an appropriate method for an investigation aimed to describe and interpret the lived experiences and perceptions of teachers. An auto-ethnographical approach was used to supplement the creative self -processes incorporated in heuristic inquiry [100]. Consequently, the researcher played a dual role in the study: that of interpreter and participant. The design approach facilitated an opportunity to challenge assumptions and beliefs held by both the researcher and the participants about teaching as work.
Participants and setting
The study involved eight teachers who were employed in one of the three sectors that make up the NSW school system consisting of government, independent, and Catholic schools. Participants had between 14 and 33 years’ experience in one or more of the three sectors of the NSW school system. One participant had taught in primary schools. Seven participants had taught in metropolitan areas of NSW. Five participants had experience teaching in regional areas of NSW. One participant had experience teaching in another Australian state. One participant had experience teaching overseas. Five participants had worked in industries other than education. A convenience sample was used for the study due to cost efficiency and expediency of data collection from readily available participants. A variation in perceptions and experiences was provided by a mix of gender (female N = 4, male N = 4), years of teaching experience, and a variety of schools and sectors. Interviews were undertaken during the school holiday period to increase convenience for the research participants, and to facilitate any subsequent follow-up.
Data collection and analysis
Semi-structured, open-ended questions were used to elicit stories from participants [99]. Beginning with broad descriptive questions, probing and clarification questions elicited further detail about teaching as work [101]. Interview questions were developed from the reviewed literature. Analysis of responses was achieved through the modification of an eight- step process [102]. Reflection occurred as an ongoing practice throughout the data analysis process. Trustworthiness was established through the process of member checking which sought clarification and confirmation from the participants. This was achieved by providing each participant with an electronic copy of the verbatim transcript, the researcher’s summary of the interview, and the researcher’s personal reflection. Participants were invited to clarify, extend, or amend the verbatim transcript and to confirm whether the summary was a fair representation of the perspectives presented in the interview. To validate emerging themes, three randomly selected transcripts were reviewed by a senior researcher.
Results and discussion
Socioeconomic characteristics such as remuneration and employment were evident in participants’ responses. Terms such as pay, wage, money, executive, co-ordinator, promotion, job, career, occupation, holidays, sack, and retain employment, were like terms, phrases, and concepts used in the literature reviewed. Phrases used included: being the breadwinner, called into the office, employment, earn a wage and getting the sack. Five participants used terms associated with hierarchical management models such as deputy, head teacher, henchmen, pleb, and powers that be. Aligning with the notion of work as an economic interaction, money provided Participant 1 with a sense of security and money was what kept the participant in the job. Participant 3 viewed work as “something you do to earn funds to live a life.” Both noted that because teaching is “hard work”, monetary payment is warranted as a reward for leaving home and family in the attempt to benefit someone else. Four participants viewed the remuneration received as fair or good. Two participants commented on being financially comfortable. This perspective can be contrasted with the experience of Ethiopian teachers whose basic needs were unable to be sustained by teaching, indicating geographic and economic contexts are important. Teaching is not intrinsically able to allow the meeting of economic needs [57].
In general, the higher-level needs of satisfaction and self-fulfilment were more important to the participants than remuneration [56]. Participant 7 noted that while financial payment was not that important personally, greater remuneration may help to address a declining respect for teachers and improve the way teachers are perceived in the community. This was exemplified in the following comment:
We live in a shallow society where people sometimes judge the worth of a profession by what it’s paid, so there’s this understanding by young people and even among students that I want to be a doctor or a lawyer. Why? Because those jobs are respected in society, they’re highly paid jobs, and I think, unfortunately, teaching lacks that respect. I think I’m well paid. I do think that in Australia there’s a culture of not respecting teachers (Participant 7).
Participant 3 also felt that there was a lack of respect for and a devaluation of teaching and teachers, which led to feeling as if it was like “bashing their head against a brick wall for no reward”. Perspectives about the value of teaching as work expressed by Participants 3 and 7 support findings from other studies that suggest, teaching is perceived as being devalued [51, 57].
Our literature review indicated that teaching involves activity that produces goods or services [13, 54]. Findings are consistent with other studies and indicate that activities involve teaching or instruction, planning or preparation, marking and providing feedback, administrative tasks, collaboration, counselling, extra-curricular activities, communicating with parents, and participating in whole school initiatives and management. [12, 48]. Data highlighted the competing nature of the activities and responsibilities that comprise the work of teachers [48]. Five of the eight participants commented on the “meaningless” nature of administrative tasks such as compliance and record keeping. Despite the participants’ views about the activities that make up teaching work, there was a high degree of congruence in their accounts about what these activities are. This points to consistency in the work of teaching not only in NSW but more broadly [13, 48].
Data also suggest that goods are produced by teachers. These goods include teaching resources and materials, educated students, and critical thinkers. One participant referred to “learning as a process not a product”. Three participants used terms associated with manufacturing, industry, and factories to talk about their work. This was evident in phrases such as ‘a people industry’, ‘trying to produce good people’, and ‘the kind of people we have produced at the other end’. The industrial nature of teachers’ work was highlighted by Participant 8’s perception that teaching involved “components” or parts, some of which are practical, working together to produce “functional human beings who can contribute to society”. The statement that schools can sometimes be “seen as a factory where you churn out students” supports elements of the OECD’s definition of work [52]. It could be argued that not only is teaching work, but “as tools of the trade” [Participant 8], teachers produce socioeconomic outcomes that benefit society. All eight participants referred to teaching as the provision of services. Two of these services - the delivery and assessment of the school curriculum - fulfil requirements of the Teacher Accreditation Act 2004 (NSW) [103]. Other services requiring specialist skills for which teachers have no training are also provided:
I’m not psychology trained ... quite often I find myself advocating for the child’s well-being ... and feeling quite angry sometimes with the parents ... . I’m not trained ... I’m not in a position to give qualified advice ... I find that very frustrating. I don’t have the right or the role or the power [Participant 2].
These specialist skills include advocacy, baby-sitting, coaching, counselling, crowd control, and mediation. Five participants used language associated with commercial enterprise to talk about work. This included: clients, clientele, company, invest, investment, market, marketing, and “my line of work”. The implication that the “people industry” [Participant 7] is comprised of corporatized factories attempting to satisfy the needs of clients in a competitive marketplace supports the concept of schools as firms [67].
While the extent to which the participants’ needs were fulfilled by work varied, data showed all eight participants were fulfilled in some way by teaching. A range of needs from existence needs such as those satisfied by remuneration and job security, to higher level needs such as self -esteem, reputation, recognition, respect, and personal growth was evident in the data [104–106]. This is exemplified in the following response from Participant 4:
I like having them succeed ... I look at their results and think they reflect on me ... It’s letting my colleagues see that I’m a good teacher [Participant 4].
The data showed all participants were motivated by and committed to helping students achieve academic and personal potential [12, 56]. Participants felt they contributed to students’ sense of self, confidence, and personal development as exemplified in the following:
The most rewarding thing in teaching is seeing the student who was lost ... who develops into a different kind of person ... When someone says to me ‘you have changed my life in some way, you have made me a better person’, it’s what makes me feel worthwhile as a teacher ... [Participant 7].
Although the extent varied, all participants wanted to make a difference in people’s lives [48, 56]. Helping students to see the value of boundaries; giving students a purpose in life; and providing encouragement as a significant adult were some of the ways in which participants hoped to make a difference in students’ lives. One participant saw value in making a difference to the lives of co-workers. A willingness to invest personally and emotionally in the form of time, energy, and focus was evident. Participant 2 felt that teaching was not work, but who teachers are:
It’s a vocation. It’s what I get up for every day. That is your purpose. That is the reason you do what you do. It becomes all that you know. It’s all that I know. It’s who I am. It is my life [Participant 2]
All participants viewed their work as being personally meaningful or socially impactful in some way [32, 59]. Three participants perceived their work to be of significance. This is evident in the following response from Participant 5:
I have a strong sense of purpose with teaching. I see it a bit like a tribal elder ... I see it as a central part of my life. I want to come to the end of my life and say, ‘I’ve had a purposeful life.’ ... . and hope there was significant purpose in my work.
Positive outcomes for participants included an improved quality of the work, a sense of achievement, and living a purposeful life. Negative outcomes included conflict, the potential to lose a battle, becoming embroiled in the emotional situations of others, and emotional fatigue. For examples:
I can’t handle the stress. It’s exhausting. It’s bad enough dealing with the kids, let alone staff members who are having a meltdown [Participant 1].
People can also be significantly draining ... I can stay up ‘til 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning marking, and that’s sapping physically, but significant conflict can be quite draining ... with conflict above you and the ‘food chain’ wanting a specific thing ... we have to care for both groups of people but that juggling can be quite stressful if people aren’t getting along [Participant 5]
Over the past 15 years I’ve realised you have to choose your battle ... if you know your kids well enough, you’ll choose your battle ... [Participant 6]
You feel emotionally exhausted ... I’m emotionally tired because dealing with other people’s issues and problems day after day is very wearing [Participant 7]
Data revealed that the regulation of emotions, emotional expression, or feelings was required to execute duties. The extent to which participants consciously managed their emotions by putting on an act or a performance varied. An understanding that rules about emotional display exist was evident in the data [50, 82]. The ability to be a good actor or performer suggests that participants understood unwritten emotional display rules requiring the regulation of emotions. This was evident in the following responses:
I have to be the voice of logic or reason in the room and sometimes that comes at a personal cost. Sometimes there are times when you have to disguise how you’re feeling. Sometimes it’s an act, other times it isn’t [Participant 7]
You need to be professional, that’s part of the act as well. You don’t know whether I’m acting or not because the persona has to be presented so well that it becomes natural because you can only fake it so far ... . it’s a combination of disguise and truth [Participant 8].
While the extent varied, all participants expressed the belief that some emotions needed to be suppressed, and responses from six participants noted this as important. Data suggested that breaking display rules can have negative consequences such as potential loss of employment and intimidation, as exemplified in the following response from Participant 2:
I’ve gone to the powers that be and I’ve said, ‘Here it is. This is how I’m feeling, and things have to change’. It’s taken a lot of courage to do that. Once upon a time, I wouldn’t have plucked up the courage to go in there but now I do because I’ve come to the point in my career where I think I’m better to be open and honest and hang the consequences.
Exposure to a traumatic event led Participant 1 to “put up the wall and pretended it wasn’t bothering me”. To be viewed as professional, Participant 3 felt the need to “continually disguise”. To keep their employment, they felt the need to hide their feelings and “pretend to be something you weren’t to toe the company line”. Participant 4 felt they were very good at pretending to feel a range of emotions like disappointment, anger, care, and empathy, noting that “a lot of the time I just want to tell them to ‘Bugger off’ and then there are other times when I just want to scream. But I don’t”.
In exploring teachers’ perceptions of ‘work’, a unique insight emerged from the data into how teachers perceive, navigate, and manage work. Teaching doesn’t feel like work when it’s enjoyable. When teaching is enjoyable there is potential for the teacher, student, and society to be transformed. Examples of this is evident in the following responses:
I see every day as a kind of performance ... particularly in the classroom it’s kind a fun ... I like the dynamic nature of teaching ... it’s fun. Uplifting. Inspiring [Participant 1]
The opportunity to empower students is the only reason I teach ... I’m in the fortunate position of being with students that teach me so much ... there’s thought, there’s growth, there’s energy ... [Participant 2]
Interestingly, the data revealed the absence of a common definition of ‘work’ amongst teachers. This was highlighted by the synonymous use of terms such as career, occupation, and job which were often used interchangeably, and is exemplified in the following responses:
A lot of the time it’s just a job ... . well, I don’t see my job as a job really ... job sounds like work ... I don’t find my job hard. I find it easy. I enjoy it. I don’t find it laborious ... I don’t think it’s my career. It’s just what I do. [Participant 4]
Is work a job or an occupation or something you’re passionate about or a hobby? To me that’s not work. But I think teaching is work, it’s a vocation. It’s more a career than it is a job [Participant 6]
This suggests a lack of a collective understanding of the concept of ‘work’ in the field of teaching. However, regardless of the semantic differences, findings suggest that teachers, as a sub-cultural group, share a common understanding of the concept of work as it relates to teaching: work involves embattlement. Teaching is work when it takes teachers away from their core business of teaching and learning. When activities perceived as useless prevent teachers from engaging in meaningful relationships with students, teaching is perceived as work.
Unexpected outcomes
An unexpected outcome of the study was the identification of signs of exposure to psychosocial risk factors or hazards such as workload, work pace, role conflict, interpersonal conflict, bullying, vicarious trauma, and lack of autonomy. Interview data is consistent with three mechanisms of injury reported by NSW Teachers Injury Data [22]. Four participants referred to exposure to traumatic events. Three participants referred to work-related harassment. One participant referred to workplace bullying. Unexpectedly, signs of negative health outcomes were also evident in the data, including references to fatigue, sleeping troubles, emotional exhaustion, emotional strain, physical and mental exhaustion, musculoskeletal disorders, burnout, and difficulties concentrating. These negative health outcomes are like those experienced by teachers in Victoria [6], the United Kingdom [20], and Turkey [23]. Although the risk factors evident in participants’ responses are like those referred to in two studies of Australian Principals [11, 14] and large- scale surveys of NSW and Victorian teachers [6, 12], this is the only study to make a connection between perceptions of teaching as ‘work’ and psychosocial work-related hazards in teaching.
Several other themes emerged from the data including battle skills, a need for self -preservation, and the impact of work on teachers’ families. A need for self-preservation and protection from potential danger in a workplace was evident in references used by five of the eight participants. Terms such as enemy, ranks, minefield, invasion, attack, safeguarding, and battle as well as phrases like ‘giving ground’,‘looking after yourself’, ‘the need to protect your arse’, ‘you need to be quite careful’, ‘covering yourself ’, ‘feeling exposed’, ‘hang the consequences’, ‘seeing friends suffer’ and ‘protect myself’, suggested that participants recognized potential risks to health, safety, or well- being and had an ability to conduct a personal risk assessment. While the measurement of risk perception was beyond the scope of this study, preliminary results support the value of using interviews as a method of exploring factors related to risk perception [6, 107].
Other emerging insights relate to cost, particularly the price paid by families of teachers [108]. In terms of productivity, this is beginning to be addressed in an Australian context [11, 89]. Participant 5’s perspective that work “potentially robs” the teacher’s family suggests a need for future studies to re-examine Dinham’s [103] observations of the impact work has on the families of teachers.
Results of the study need to be viewed in light of the qualitative approach taken in this study. While the heuristic design approach provided an opportunity for participants to tell their stories [99] of teaching as ‘work’, the potential for the researcher (who shares the same profession as the participants) to over-empathize may limit objectivity and confirmability. This could be viewed as problematic, particularly for those who favor a positivist approach to research. However, the inclusion of two methods for establishing trustworthiness were suitable strategies to offset limitations of the research design. Furthermore, member-checking was employed to ascertain the fidelity of the analysis to the participants’ accounts rather than to impose an external ‘truth’. In this way the research is more closely aligned with a social constructivist perspective [109].
Conclusion
On the surface, concepts like ‘work’ and by extension, ‘worker’ appear relatively simple. However, these concepts are far more complex than the OECD’s [50] definition would indicate, particularly when considered in the context of teaching. Consider that work is a purposive and socially useful activity. On the surface, this notion appears perfectly reasonable: work can benefit not only the individual but society more broadly. In this way, it could be argued that purposive and useful work is positive and rewarding for individuals and society. Teaching, as a unique type of work, can certainly be purposive and useful. When teaching facilitates opportunities for students to develop problem solving skills, it is purposive and useful. When teaching lays foundations that enable students to become adaptable, resilient, critical thinkers, it is purposive and useful. When teaching facilitates nurturing interactions and relationships that are authentic and honest, it is not only purposive and useful but rewarding and positive. It is enjoyable. When teaching is enjoyable it is not perceived as work. Activities that make teaching enjoyable involve people and stories; collaboratively searching for logical or rational solutions to problems; encouraging students to risk failure and view it as an opportunity to learn; and helping students appreciate how knowledge can be adapted to new situations. Further, when the activities that comprise teaching as opposed to ‘work’, move the teacher and student towards the higher goals of personal and academic achievement, personal transformation and self-actualization, positive outcomes for both teachers and students result. These include a greater sense of connectedness, self-actualization, and purposefulness. In knowing that they are making positive contributions not only to the lives of individual students, but to society more broadly, teachers feel satisfied with and rewarded by the contributions they make to transforming the lives of others.
However, over the past 30 years, the nature of the teaching profession has changed in such a way as to reduce the time available to do activities that facilitate transformation, and has added a burden of activities that reduce a teacher’s capacity to facilitate a transformation in their students [12]. This can lead to teachers feeling disenfranchised and emotionally exhausted [20] and the perception that some parts of teaching are certainly ‘work’, where teachers are embattled rather than empowered. Activities associated with embattlement and, therefore, ‘work’ are static. The data revealed a consistency in how they are defined and broken down into categories like administration, workload, work design, and work management. Data measurement, management, and reporting; performing multiple roles with limited time, expertise, skill or support; managing, disguising or hiding emotions; protecting themselves against loss of employment; managing constant disruption; and dealing with the emotional issues of others are example of teaching as ‘work’. When these comprise the bulk of teachers’ work, the likelihood of rewards or positive outcomes for either teachers or students become diminished. When viewed through a work health and safety lens, the implications for recognising these activities as potential psychosocial hazards becomes significant and depends on whether teaching is viewed as work or something else. Teachers undertake personal risk assessments as an implicit part of their work. While it may not be perceived as work, in a legislative and industrial sense, teaching is work: a unique type of purposive and useful activity that benefits and transforms individuals and society. But it is not without its risks.
Curiously, teaching is rarely viewed through the lens of work health and safety, yet teachers can be exposed to hazards just like any other workers. The study highlights the paradoxical nature of work. It shows that teaching is work that is both rewarding and hazardous. It is taxing at times but uplifting at others. It requires the strength and courage of a warrior and the compassion and care of a nurturer. The study raises questions about the sustainability of work design and work management practices currently employed in the NSW school system. In so doing, the study provides an opportunity to challenge previous ways of conceptualising teaching. This study shifts the focus to a unique type of work that is potentially hazardous.
Conflict of interest
None to report.