Washington, D.C. -- Removal of the marriage bars against female teachers may have created today's climate where elementary school teachers, who are predominantly female, feel overworked and pressed for time, according to a Penn State researcher.
"Up until as late as World War II, female teachers had to be single," says Dr. Robert Drago, professor of labor studies. "People assumed that married women had to take care of their own children, but that spinsters could teach other people's children."
However, when the restrictions on married teachers ended, no one considered teachers' children.
"Today's elementary school teachers feel enormous time pressure and teachers with children feel the most pressed for time," Drago told attendees today (Feb. 18) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C.
Presenting their report, "The Time, Work & Family Project: A Study of Teachers," Drago suggested that "schools need to explicitly incorporate the value of teacher's work and family commitments in policy-making and practice." Schools need to recognize that teachers have children and that teachers' children are not going to go away.
Drago worked with Robert Caplan and David Costanza of George Washington University on the study, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, that included four urban school districts and 46 schools. The study also asked 323 teachers of kindergarten through fifth grade to complete a 24-hour time diary covering a working Tuesday.
The study found that the average teacher was under contract to work 6.5 hours per day, but actually put in more than 8 hours of work in school. Teachers also worked an average of 10 hours per day or more by taking work home.
"It follows that much of the work teachers did for their school is, in a strict sense, voluntary and unpaid," said Drago.
The study also found that school districts and relevant teacher's unions implemented few formal initiatives to help teachers meet their work and family commitments. However, this may be because teachers were not demanding work/family initiatives. Actually, the typical strategy to deal with the time squeeze was acceptance, rather than such proactive approaches as time control or reducing housework," says Drago.
While teachers with children under 5 years old did cut back on their hours, other teachers did not use this approach to relieve the crunch. According to Drago, the teachers, who are mostly female, may be influenced by a norm of domesticity, which may lead women to expect and be expected, to exhibit greater concern for children than men. Other reasons may be job-related.
"It is rare that a teacher is not promoted," says Drago. "The average teacher could cut back an hour a day and still fulfill the requirements for promotion." However, supervising teachers and principals can use other approaches to chastising teachers who cut back, including allocation of facilities, class assignments and student assignments, he notes.
"Teachers who cut back would probably suffer," says Drago. "This is why any move to reduce teacher burdens has to be done as a group." But the study did find that where organizational norms were supportive of a teacher's need to balance work and family, teachers had significantly reduced perceptions of time pressures. Principals and school districts that understood teacher's responsibilities as parents, created more satisfied teachers.
The study suggests two strategies for publicly raising the issue of coping with work and family responsibilities while simultaneously easing the time pressures confronting many teachers. Evaluating principals on the basis of their support for both the work and family commitments of teachers would build supportive organizational norms, improve job satisfaction and reduce time pressures. Also, teachers' unions and school districts should ask the teachers how they value work/family policies to see if these issues should be included in collective bargaining.
At home, greater equality of men and women in doing housework and caring for families would also relieve some of the time pressure.
EDITORS: Dr. Drago is at 814-865-5425 or at drago@psu.edu by e-mail.