ABSTRACT

Fixed-term contracts are a relatively recent, yet growing category of employment for teachers in the public school system in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. In this article, we draw on quantitative and qualitative data from a large state-wide survey (N = 18,234) of members of the public-school teacher union, the NSW Teachers’ Federation, in order to explore the workload reports of teachers in temporary employment. We find that overall, these teachers report similar levels of workload to staff employed on a permanent basis. Experiences of work are, however, qualitatively different, with many in the temporary category feeling they must work harder than permanent teachers in order to ‘prove themselves’ to school executive. We argue that such experiences of precariousness may have particular ‘scarring’ effects for teachers in temporary employment, including gendered patterns of career progression, and discuss implications for leadership and policy.

摘要

定期合同是澳大利亚新南威尔士州 (NSW) 公立学校系统教师的一个相对较新但不断增长的就业类别。在这篇文章中，我们从一项大型全州调查（N = 18,234) 的公立学校教师工会，新南威尔士州教师联合会的成员，以探索临时就业教师的工作量报告。我们发现，总体而言，这些教师报告的工作量水平与长期雇用的员工相似。然而，工作经历在本质上是不同的，许多临时教师认为他们必须比正式教师更努力地工作，才能向学校行政人员“证明自己”。我们认为，这种不稳定的经历可能对临时就业的教师产生特别的“伤疤”影响，包括职业发展的性别模式，并讨论对领导力和政策的影响。