Abstract
Internationally, neoliberal policy agendas for education have promoted performative cultures for teachers, leading to stress, burn-out and high rates of attrition from the profession. This in turn has generated an increasing interest in investigating and researching teacher wellbeing. This study broadly explores the discursive construction of teacher wellbeing through policies as well as how teachers conceptualise wellbeing. Particularly, this study examines how the wellbeing of teachers has been discursively constructed as an aspect of teacher’s work that can be the subject of scrutiny and measurement of their quality. This stems from international education policy discourse which identifies teachers as key determinants of learning outcomes needed to create a globally competitive workforce. Similarly, in the Dominican Republic, the context of this study, teacher wellbeing has been put at the centre of policy and public discourse due to policy reforms introduced in 2011 to 2019 to solve and improve education quality. However, there is a lack of attention to how other aspects of the policy reforms contribute and exacerbate teacher stress and attrition rates in the teaching profession. Thus, this study aimed to explore how the educational reforms of 2011 to 2019 shaped teacher wellbeing discourses in the Dominican Republic. In particular, this study considers the neoliberal technologies of performativity culture and results-based management.This study draws on Foucauldian discourse analysis to examine the ways in which language (through discourse) can create knowledge or ‘regimes of truth’ (Foucault, 2000, 2004). Thus, teacher wellbeing is defined through a Foucauldian perspective that considers how neoliberal policy reforms have created a discursive and social environment wherein changes to the profession such as work intensification, wide ranging curriculum change, lack of agency and autonomy, are instilled as the norm. As a result, teacher wellbeing in this study is not understood as an individual experience but rather as a concept discursively constructed within a specific policy landscape. As such, the thesis examined teachers’ experiences with policy discourses through in-depth interviews with Dominican primary teachers from the capital region of the country. Additionally, the study involved policy discourse analysis through policy actors’ interviews from the main educational organisations of the country as well as policy documents relevant to teacher governance.
The findings of the study indicate how neoliberal policies in the Dominican Republic have pushed a quality discourse that responsibilises teachers for quality whilst overlooking structural failures of the education system. Moreover, these quality discourses present a paradoxical view of teachers where they are regarded as essential for the economic progress of the nation but seen through a deficit lens that ensures teacher quality through regulations, controls, and measures. Consequently, teacher wellbeing has been defined in policy discourse as an objective wellbeing that focuses on salary and pensions. On the other hand, teachers understand wellbeing as a multifaceted concept that comprises of the social, emotional, communal, relational, and spiritual. This study has wider significance in terms of making visible the contradictions between the performative individualism of neoliberal governance and teachers’ own motivation and commitment values to public service and the common good.
| Date of Award | 6 Dec 2022 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Angeline M Barrett (Supervisor) & Arathi Sriprakash (Supervisor) |