Re-visualizing Care: Teachers' Invisible Labor in Neoliberal Times

Author

Victoria G. Restler, The Graduate Center, City University of New YorkFollow

Date of Degree

6-2017

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Program

Urban Education

Advisor

Wendy Luttrell

Committee Members

Ofelia Garcia

Claudia Mitchell

Maria Elena Torre

Subject Categories

Art Practice | Education | Urban Education

Keywords

education policy, teacher evaluation, educational justice, visual research, multimodal methods, carework and care inequalities

Abstract

Re-visualizing care: Teachers’ invisible labor in neoliberal times takes up the topic of teacher evaluation in a moment of moral panic about “bad teachers,” public controversy over Value- Added Measures (VAM) of teacher work, and the widespread implementation of new assessment policies under Race to the Top (RTTT). Working with a group of ten progressive New York City public school teachers in the first year of one such policy (known as “Advance”), my multimodal study engages a wide variety of qualitative and arts-based research methods to explore teachers’ experiences of “Advance,” their broader reflections on practice, and the substantial work they do that is not captured by evaluation metrics.

My research shines a light on teachers’ invisible carework expanding our imagination of teacher labor, and calling out the mismatch between white, middle-class expectations and the actual demands placed on urban teachers. Bringing forward the unequal distribution of teachers’ caring burdens and responsibilities across race/ class/ gender/ culture/ and language in urban schools, this research highlights teachers’ carework as a significant (and under-researched) site for the social reproduction of school inequality. And my use of digital and visual methodologies in the print document and companion digital assemblage, works to record and make visible the invisible work of teaching, thereby breaking through currently accepted quantitative images to see students, teachers and schools in their full humanity.

Recommended Citation

Restler, Victoria G., "Re-visualizing Care: Teachers' Invisible Labor in Neoliberal Times" (2017). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2039