Feeling Obligated: Teaching in Neoliberal Times

Feeling Obligated combines theoretical insights with the first-hand experiences of Canadian teachers to illustrate the impact of neoliberalism - the installation of market norms into educational and social policies - on teachers’ professional integrity.

Anne M. Phelan and Melanie D. Janzen illustrate the miserable conditions in which teachers teach, their efforts to navigate and withstand those circumstances, and their struggle to respond ethically to students, especially those already marginalized economically and socially. Exploring how educational policies attempt to recast teachers as skilled clinicians, the book revitalizes a conversation about teaching as a vocation wherein the challenge of obligation is of central concern. Haunted by what has already happened and threatened by what may yet occur, Feeling Obligated foregrounds the challenge of ethical obligation in teaching and makes a strong case for the revitalization of teaching as a vocation, involving commitment, resolve, and trust in a future yet to come.

Anne M. Phelan is a professor in the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy at the University of British Columbia and an honorary professor at the Education University of Hong Kong.
Melanie D. Janzen is a professor in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning at the University of Manitoba.