‘We are not babysitters’: Meaningfulness and meaninglessness in homeroom teachers' identity work

Abstract

This study explores how homeroom teachers construct meaningfulness in their work and in their professional identity, and how this meaningfulness serves them as they interpret and react to public criticism of their profession. Our study relies on interviews with 95 teachers working in Israeli elementary‐, middle‐ and high schools, and draws on the theoretical lens of discursive identity work. We argue that meaningfulness is at the heart of homeroom teachers' identity. Accordingly, when faced with public criticism that questions the meaningfulness of their work, teachers experience threats to their professional identity. Notably, such identity threats are of a gendered nature, as teachers make sense of public criticism by conceptualising it through the gendered stereotype of ‘babysitting’. Furthermore, female teachers are much more likely than male teachers to face criticism from family members and friends. We identify remedial identity work strategies that teachers employ in the face of such identity threats.