23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Paper
Contingencies of Collective Bargaining: Comparing Teacher Union Engagement in Social Dialogue on Teacher Supply in Europe
Alison Milner1, Howard Stevenson2
1Aalborg University, Denmark; 2University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
Presenting Author: Milner, Alison;
Stevenson, Howard
Teacher shortages in schools across Europe have received considerable policy and media attention in recent months (e.g., European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2022; Jack & Cocco, 2022). Despite strong political consensus over the need to attract quality candidates to the teaching profession, many national education systems face significant problems with teacher supply which, with ageing workforces and increasing teacher retirements in the next two decades, are only likely to worsen (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2022). Though by no means a recent phenomenon, the European Commission has attributed this current teacher crisis to the low attractiveness of the profession and argued that longer-term systematic efforts need to be made to improve recruitment and retention if progress is to be made on targets towards the achievement of a European Education Area (European Commission, 2022).
Comparative research suggests that issues of teacher supply and demand – and the national education policies designed to address them – are highly contextualised (IBF Consulting, 2013a, 2013b). Moreover, despite the critical role that employer and employee organisations might play as social partners in teacher policy development, governance structures – and the division of policy labour between national, local and school-level actors – can inhibit social dialogue and teacher union engagement in industrial and professional issues (Stevenson, et al., 2018). Ultimately though, the relative ‘attractiveness’ of the teaching profession should be considered from a sociological and historical perspective (Cochran Smith, 2006) and in the context of a wider labour market which, in the post-pandemic era, has undergone significant transformation (Stevenson & Milner, 2023). All these interrelated factors suggest a need for empirical research to expand our understanding of this complex problem in order to promote a bargaining agenda based on a systemic and strategic response to the teacher crisis in Europe.
To address the gaps in knowledge and industrial relations in education, this paper explores teacher unions' strategic actions to improve the attractiveness of the teaching profession in three European contexts: Ireland, Poland and Sweden. The principal research questions are:
1. What is the situation in relation to teacher supply in Ireland, Poland and Sweden?
2. What factors explain problems of teacher recruitment and retention in these contexts?
3. How have teacher unions been able to intervene to improve the attractiveness of the teaching profession through effective social dialogue?
Drawing on Archer (2008), we approach this paper through a critical realist lens which understands teacher union involvement in social dialogue processes as both spatially and temporally contingent. For Archer, society is defined by its morphogenic nature; namely, its capacity to change its shape or form. Significant to morphogenesis is the notion of temporality; current social structures – discourses, practices, relations, conventions – are the products of past social actions. Thus, teacher union agents can only transform future social structures through strategic actions conditioned by their present social context and their differential capacities to act on professional and industrial issues. To understand the potential for transformation, it is therefore important to analyse both the structural constraints and agential freedom of organised teachers within their diverse social and cultural contexts. Two significant social conditions for union action in our research were: i) social dialogue processes at the national level and ii) established industrial relations systems and frameworks in the context of wider socio-economic, health and humanitarian crises.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedFunded by the European Commission, this qualitative case study is part of a much larger policy project developed by the European Sectoral Social Dialogue Committee for Education. The country cases were selected to cover a range of different industrial relations models and geographical locations within the European Union. While limited to three national cases, the findings for this research will have relevance to other European nations in which there are difficulties in recruiting and retaining sufficient numbers of qualified teachers to the profession.
Data collection was conducted between September 2022 and January 2023. The principal data collection methods were documentary research and elite interviews. Documentary research consisted of the content analysis of national policy documents (e.g., government directives, inquiry commission reports, press releases) produced by ministries of education, national education authorities, statistics agencies and the social partners. In the first stage of analysis, this method was used to establish the principal issues of teacher supply, policy initiatives related to recruitment and retention, and the extent of commonality and variation between case contexts. It therefore addressed the first two research questions.
Semi-structured interviews were conducted online with officials from the national teacher unions and employer organisations to explore their experiences and perspectives of social dialogue on efforts towards improving the attractiveness of the profession and teacher supply. While the focus of this paper is principally the teacher trade unions, the interview data from the employer organisations will be used to triangulate the union data. The trade union research participants were: the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO), the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) and the Association of Secondary Teachers’ in Ireland (ASTI) (Ireland), Lärarförbundet and Lärarnas Riksförbund (Sweden), and NSZZ “Solidarność”, ZNP and Wolny Związek Zawodowy "Forum-Oświata" (Poland). The interview questions were based on all three research questions.
The second stage of data analysis will begin in March. The interview data will be coded to identify the principal themes in the individual national cases and then comparatively. Adopting an abductive approach to analysis, codes will be developed both from the theoretical framework and through a process of opening coding. These codes will then be condensed into themes within and across the cases.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsResearch analysis is ongoing and the thematic coding is yet to be completed. However, early findings reveal that there are similarities and differences in issues of teacher supply across the three contexts. There are no global shortages of qualified teachers in Ireland, Poland or Sweden; however, the education system of each national case is currently experiencing problems in recruiting teachers of specific subjects, sectors and specialisms, most notably in science, maths and technology, early years and vocational education.
While teachers are paid relatively well in Ireland, and there have been significant pay rises through legislative reforms and career progression initiatives in Poland and Sweden, salary remains a contentious issue in all contexts. Challenges were noted in relation to the cost-of-living in large cities, the comparability of starting salaries to graduate earnings in other sectors, a lack of transparency in the implementation of new pay models and government policy aims to increase teachers' contact hours without the appropriate remuneration. Educational reforms have been introduced to enhance teachers' professional development and career progression, although the former was not always contractually regulated or implemented fully.
Migration - whether inward, outward or internal - is an issue in all the cases. Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there has been a significant influx of Ukrainian children and young people to Ireland and Poland. Teacher supply issues have been exacerbated by increased class sizes and the psycho-social, linguistic, and pedagogical needs of these refugees. This war has also redirected social partner priorities and expenditure.
There are established quality processes of social dialogue in Ireland and Sweden and the trade unions are consulted on professional issues related to educational reforms. However, educational decentralisation has fragmented approaches in Poland and Sweden and there are is a lack of clarity and/or conflict over professional and industrial policy responsibilities.
ReferencesArcher, M. (2008). Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cochran-Smith, M. (2006). Stayers, Leavers, Lovers and Dreamers: Why people teach and why they stay. 2004 Barbara Biber Lecture. Bank Street College of Education. 16 Occasional Paper Series. April 2006.
European Commission. (2022). Progress towards the achievement of the European Education Area. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and Committee of the Regions. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/a5ef3055-66f5-11ed-b14f-01aa75ed71a1/language-en
European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice. (2022). Teachers' and School Heads' Salaries and Allowances in Europe – 2020/21. Eurydice Facts and Figures. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. https://eurydice.eacea.ec.europa.eu/publications/teachers-and-school-heads-salaries- and-allowances-europe-20202021
IBF Consulting. (2013a). Study on Policy Measures to improve the Attractiveness of the Teaching Profession in Europe. Volume 1. Final Report. Publications Office of the European Union. https://op.europa.eu/da/publication-detail/-/publication/eb4f3b89- 5f9b-4d8e-997b-426a9e3a41cd/language-en/format-PDF/source-118075411
IBF Consulting. (2013b). Study on Policy Measures to improve the Attractiveness of the Teaching Profession in Europe. Volume 2. Final Report. Publications Office of the European Union. https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/625d2e56- 7085-4cb9-a97d-5e1c94eab261/language-en/format-PDF/source-199810379
Jack, A., and Cocco, F. (2022, 2 September). Wanted: tens of thousands of teachers to staff Europe’s schools. Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/116d8c88-aa3f-426f-aeb8-c0a0325c43bb
Stevenson, H., & Milner, A.L. (2023). Towards a Framework of Action on the Attractiveness of the Teaching Profession through Effective Social Dialogue. Brussels: European Trade Union Committee for Education.
Stevenson, H. Milner, A., & Winchip, E. (2018) Education trade unions for the teaching profession: strengthening the capacity of education trade unions to represent teachers’ professional needs in social dialogue. Brussels: ETUCE.
23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Paper
Teachers and Time Poverty.
Anna Hogan, Greg Thompson
Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Presenting Author: Hogan, Anna;
Thompson, Greg
Systems, unions, and school communities are confronting significant issues with teachers and their work. Concerns around teachers’ workload and work intensification appear to be impacting the attractiveness of teaching as a career for current teachers and for young people considering teaching as a career. Importantly, this seems to be a global concern as many jurisdictions report that it is increasingly difficult to recruit principals, experienced teachers are leaving the profession and teaching is perceived by young people as having low appeal as a career (te Braak et al., 2022; Wang et al., 2018; Spicksley, 2022; Skaalvik, 2020). Stress, burnout, and job dissatisfaction appear to be on the increase, at the same time as there is a perceived decline in the status of teaching. Understanding the direct factors at work in this phenomenon remains a methodological challenge. Social acceleration, manifest in perceptions that that there is no longer ‘enough time’, appear to be increasing in many societies across a range of occupations (Rosa, 2010, 2013). However, as Wacjman (2008) has argued, while many people perceive that the pace of their life has increased, there is little empirical evidence that we now have less time than in the past, and a challenge remains for researchers to engage with this as an empirical problem.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedOur approach in this paper is first, to explore existing empirical research on teacher workload and work intensification with a particular emphasis on how these ideas are being operationalised. Second, through a systematic review of that literature we look at how, if at all, workload and work intensification are being theorised as related aspects of teachers’ work. Third, we introduce the concept of ‘time poverty’ to posit the relationship between workload and work intensification, and our resultant strategy for empirically investigating the time poverty of teachers and school leaders. Finally, we report on our findings from our pilot study of 136 participants that evaluated the feasibility and preliminary outcomes of a novel, purpose-built app that uses a ‘patchwork’ data set to characterise teacher time use in real time.
The Teacher Time Use app was designed with a commercial app developer through an iterative development process. Participants were recruited to a nonrandomized, single-arm trial of the Teacher Time Use app. All participants were asked to track their time use across three 30-minute time periods (randomly assigned by the app) on three different days. All participants were also asked to complete a ‘start of day’ survey and an ‘end of day’ survey on each of these three days. Data used in this pilot study include data directly entered by participants into the app and app data analytics.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThis research has implications for how we understand teachers’ experiences of disillusionment and demoralisation within their jobs and what might be done to address this. To intervene in the problems of teachers’ work there is a need to intervene in the problem of time poverty. Too often, proposed recommendations to ‘solve’ the problems of teachers’ work focus on either workload (e.g., regulating the number of hours teachers work and get paid for) or work intensification (e.g., removing some of the types of work teachers do, for example lesson planning) without accounting for the subjective experiences of teachers. While our pilot study used only a small sample of teachers, broad analysis of this data evidence a dissonance between a teacher being the kind of teacher they want to be, and the type of teacher they have time to be. This is not simply a matter of the time teachers work, or the type of work they do, but how they experience these together.
ReferencesRosa, H. (2013). Social acceleration: A new theory of modernity. New York: Columbia University Press.
Rosa, H. (2010). Social Acceleration: Ethical and Political Consequences of a Desynchronised High-Speed Society. In Rosa H. & Scheuerman (Eds.), High-Speed Society: Social Acceleration, Power and Modernity. (pp. 77-112). The Pennsylvania State University Press.
Skaalvik, C. (2020). Emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction among Norwegian school principals: relations with perceived job demands and job resources. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 1-25. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2020.1791964
Spicksley, K. (2022). Hard work/ workload: discursive constructions of teacher work in policy and practice. Teachers and Teaching. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2022.2062741
te Braak, P., Van Droogenbroeck, F., Minnen, J., van Tienoven, T. P., & Glorieux, I. (2022). Teachers' working time from time-use data: Consequences of the invalidity of survey questions for teachers, researchers, and policy. Teaching and Teacher Education, 109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2021.103536
Wang, F., Pollock, K., & Hauseman, C. (2018). School Principals' Job Satisfaction: The Effects of Work Intensification. Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy(185), 73-90.
Wajcman, J. (2008). Life in the fast lane? Towards a sociology of technology and time. The British Journal of Sociology. 59(1), 59-77
23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Paper
Teachers in the Spotlight of the Global Education Industry: How Corporate Philanthropies Collaborate with the State to Shape Teacher Development
Benedict Kurz1, Marcelo Parreira do Amaral2
1Bielefeld University, Germany; 2University of Muenster, Germany
Presenting Author: Kurz, Benedict
In the last years, we have seen the rise of a new and globalised industry sector focusing on education (Parreira do Amaral et al. 2019; Verger et al. 2016; Verger et al. 2023). One crucial feature of this Global Education Industry (GEI) is its new mix of players. Within the GEI, philanthropic foundations have emerged as influential actors that are shaping national education systems around the world (Au & Lubienski 2016; Avelar 2021; Tarlau & Moeller 2020). In line with the logics of the economy of scale, the collaboration with the state, e.g. by forging public-private partnerships (Robertson et al. 2012; Steiner-Khamsi & Draxler 2018), has emerged as one of their preferred modes of operation. This allowed corporate philanthropies to be active in education services beyond, for instance, private provision (Verger 2016).
In recent years, teachers, teacher quality and teacher education have become a focus point for the GEI (Robertson 2016; Saltman 2010; Schweisfurth 2022). Since teacher CPD, the continuous professional development of teachers, is not only a potential new market niche for products and services of the GEI, but also a fast-pace policy tool to disseminate own ideas and beliefs, it has become increasingly popular among corporate philanthropies that consider themselves to be changemakers in education (Kurz & Parreira do Amaral 2023).
In this presentation, we will shed light on this new phenomenon. We apply a comparative perspective using the Global Education Industry (GEI) as an analytical tool to explore the collaboration between corporate philanthropy and the state as well as the implications of such partnerships. Therefore, we will first will explore the activities of two corporate philanthropies in teacher CPD, Bosch Foundation and Varkey Foundation, by explicating their purposes, approaches and roles. Second, we will point out several implications from such public-philanthropic partnerships for public education.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedBy analysing documents, such as websites, social media posts and brochures, we examine two public-philanthropic partnerships for teacher development, in Germany with the involvement of Bosch Foundation and in Argentina with the involvement of Varkey Foundation. Drawing on Anheier’s (2018) comparative approach, we explicate their purposes, approaches and roles while highlighting how both strive for change and, thus, engage in teacher CPD.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsDrawing on Anheier’s (2018) comparative approach, we show that corporate philanthropies striving to become changemakers in education, including Bosch Foundation and Varkey Foundation, increasingly engage in teacher CPD. To this end, they chose to collaborate with state entities. Their focus on teacher development, however, goes beyond mere economic interests such as, for instance, opening-up a new market niche for their parent company. Rather, teacher CPD serves as a fast-pace policy tool, which is why corporate philanthropies consider it a promising approach for promoting their 'innovative' ideas.
These developments are not only accompanied by questions of democratic accountability, but also have implications for the teaching profession. Ultimately, this raises the question of whether philanthropic interest in teacher development could potentially transform the role of teachers, for instance, by turning them into agents for corporate-envisioned change.
ReferencesAu, W., & Lubienski, C. (2016). The role of the Gates Foundation and the philanthropic sector in shaping the emerging education market. Lessons from the US on privatization of schools and education governance. In A. Verger, C. Lubienski, & G. Steiner-Khamsi (Eds.), World Yearbook of Education 2016: The Global Education Industry (pp. 28–43). Routledge.
Avelar, M. (2021). Disrupting Education Policy: How New Philanthropy Works to Change Education. Peter Lang.
Kurz, B., & Parreira do Amaral, M. (2023). Philanthropising Teacher Education? The Emerging Activities of Corporate Philanthropy in Teacher Development. Revista Española De Educación Comparada, (42), 109–132. https://doi.org/10.5944/reec.42.2023.34241
Parreira do Amaral, M., Steiner-Khamsi, G., & Thompson, C. (Eds.). (2019). Researching the Global Education Industry – Commodification, the Market and Business Involvement. Springer International.
Robertson, S. L. (2016). The global governance of teachers’ work. In K. Mundy, A. Green, B. Lingard, & A. Verger (Eds.), The handbook of global education policy (pp. 275–290). Wiley.
Saltman, K. J. (2010). The Gift of Education: Public Education and Venture Philanthropy. Palgrave Macmillan.
Schweisfurth, M. (2022). The Development Discourse of “Quality Teachers”: Implications for Teacher Professional Development. In: Menter, I. (Ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Teacher Education Research (pp.1-15). Palgrave Macmillan.
Steiner-Khamsi, G., & Draxler, A. (Eds.). (2018). The state, business and education. Edward Elgar.
Tarlau, R., & Moeller, K. (2020). Philanthropizing’ consent: how a private foundation pushed through national learning standards in Brazil. Journal of Education Policy, 35(3), 337–366. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2018.1560504
Verger, A. (2016, March 14). The rise of the global education industry: Some concepts, facts and figures. Education International. Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://www.ei-ie.org/en/item/21340:the-rise-of-the-global-education-industry-some-concepts-facts-and-figures
Verger, A., Fontdevila, C., & Moschetti, M. (Eds). (2023): The Global Education Industry: Comparative Education Analyses [Special Issue]. Revista Española de Educación Comparada, (42).
Verger, A., Lubienski, C., & Steiner-Khamsi, G. (Eds.). (2016a). World Yearbook of Education 2016: The Global Education Industry. Routledge.
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