Teacher alienation in Hong Kong

Teacher alienation in Hong Kong

• Tsang, Kwok Kuen Caritas Institute of Higher Education

Discourse-Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 39(3), 335-346, 2018

Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd

2018

• M Teachers & Education for Teachers
  • MF Characteristics & Conditions of Educational Workers

Alienation Powerlessness Meaninglessness Isolation Self-Estrangement Teacher Emotions Teaching Anxiety School

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Unknown or Unspecified

Teachers' negative emotions began to receive attention in the Hong Kong context in the mid-1990s. As negative emotions may affect both teachers' well-being and the quality of their teaching, Hong Kong education policy-makers and educators have used psychological approaches to determine the reasons why teachers experience negative feelings. However, these approaches fail to accommodate the social causes of negative emotions. Therefore, this study investigates the possible social causes of teachers' negative emotions from the perspective of alienation theory. In-depth interviews with 21 teachers in Hong Kong reveal that Hong Kong teachers may be suffering from alienation (characterised by a sense of powerlessness, meaninglessness, isolation, and self-estrangement) due to their experiences of teaching, their employment status, and their structural position in schools, which are related to the occupational and organisational structure of teaching. The findings also indicate that patterns of alienation may differ between more and less experienced teachers.
[Copyright of Discourse-Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education is the property of Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2016.1261084]

• English

Journal Articles

• 01596306

• 10.1080/01596306.2016.1261084

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/1a2aa9b4

2018-12-11