Teaching and Time Poverty: Understanding Workload and Work Intensification in Schools

As teacher shortages reach a global crisis point, this book explores how time poverty has become a critical factor in the working lives of teachers and school leaders. Arguing that we need to move away from framing the problem of teachers’ work as simply workload, this book suggests that understanding time poverty is the first step in moving toward more manageable working lives.

The book brings together international perspectives on teacher time poverty, drawing on theoretical and empirical work to underscore the growing complexity of teachers’ work and how this impacts job satisfaction, stress and feeling that there is never enough time to accomplish all that needs to be done. Many policy solutions misdiagnose the problems of teachers’ work, simply suggesting it is an issue of workload. The chapters investigate issues of work intensification, finding that teachers are not only working longer, but also working harder as they manage more complex classrooms and policy mandates.

This book is essential reading for those interested in understanding how current education policy both produces time poverty and could better identify and respond to the complexities of teachers’ work.

Greg Thompson is Professor of Education Research at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia. His research focuses on educational theory, education policy, and the philosophy/sociology of education assessment, accountability and measurement.

Anna Hogan is an ARC DECRA research fellow in the School of Teacher Education and Leadership, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia. Her research interests broadly focus on education policy and practice.