Different careers — equal professionals: women in teaching

Healy, Geraldine; Kraithman, David

doi:10.1007/978-1-349-24691-5_7

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…For returners, it could be posited that temporal commitments have to be met before organizational or intrinsic commitment can be a major consideration in job 'choice'. The study suggests that returners demonstrate multiple commitments, and yet post-break experiences may lead them to be trapped in a work cycle phase not of their choosing, a 'compromise phase' (Healy and Kraithman 1996). The study provides evidence of returners' intrinsic commitment to work but when this is mediated by their structured temporal commitment, such commitment may be considered by potential employers, who equate 'commitment' with long hours and continuous employment, as inadequate.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Women's work histories may be characterized by movement in and out of the labour market following childbirth. 1 The return to work period for some women is seen as an 'interim phase' (Healy and Kraithman 1996) or as 'treading water' (Brannen and Moss 1991). The success of using the interim phase to facilitate a return to a desired final career phase will be influenced by the degree of change, labour market conditions and the particular patterns of organizational discrimination.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Structuring Commitments in Interrupted Careers: Career Breaks, Commitment and the Life Cycle in Teaching

Healy

1999

Gender Work & Organization

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Recent interest in work commitment has been within a unitary paradigm in both the sociological literature on women's commitment to work and in the human resource management literature on the need to generate commitment to work. The paper argues that the 'commitment concept' is a social construction with a multiplicity of meanings and that its usage is subjective, contradictory, temporal and frequently gendered. Debates focusing on the 'masculine' job model of commitment tend to provide only partial insights by an emphasis on the continuous, linear career and thereby neglect, or negate, the work commitment of women who take a career break. Drawing on a large study of professional teachers, the paper enables a comparison of commitment indicators between stages within a life history and between 'returners' and other respondents. The findings demonstrate how commitments change over time and indicate that the commitments of returners are the outcome of the interplay between 'choices' and the different structural conditions they encounter during their life cycle which may lead to 'career curtailment' or, in times of labour shortages, career opportunities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Structuring Commitments in Interrupted Careers: Career Breaks, Commitment and the Life Cycle in Teaching

Healy

1999

Gender Work & Organization

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“…Educational jobs are seen as being compatible with family responsibilities, offering relatively good pay, though research into part-time educational work found that it was still considered by schools as a mark of lower aspirations (Healy & Kraithman, 1996). Jobs in education have also become more casualised, with an increasing use of short-term contract work (Healy & Kraithman, 1996). Social work is also a feminised profession, at least at lower levels of the hierarchy, and there are increased opportunities for part-time work due to such developments as care in the community (Horrell & Rubery,199 1).…”

Section: Non-manual Part-time Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Working reduced hours tends to relegate workers to a separate segment of the labour market typically lacking promotion prospects (Dale, 1987;Gallie & White, 1994). Access to top managerial positions still usually requires an uninterrupted career pattern, and the perceived demands of the workload, or consideration for preferment, often involves displaying commitment by working long hours, as is the norm in the UK generally (Buswell & Jenkins, 1994;Cartwright 2% Cooper, 1997;Healy & Kraithman, 1996). Part-time workers and job-sharers often cannot compete on such terms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

A best case scenario? Non-manual part-time work and job-sharing in UK local government in the 1990s

Stanworth

1999

Community, Work & Family

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Local authorities in the UK have been described as 'model employers' of part-time and job-share employees, with the needs of employees themselves, particularly women with family responsibilities, acting as the primary driver for the use of reduced hours working patterns. To investigate how far this 'exemplar' label applied in practice, and to what extent this overcame the well-known drawbacks of reduced hours working patterns, the causes and consequences of working reduced hours amongst professional, managerial and administrative staff were investigated in a London borough in the mid-1990s. It was found that the 'model employer' label was applicable, but it was under threat jkom an emerging emphasis on a demand-led, service-driven use of reduced hours work. It is argued that there is a strong business case for making more creative use of reduced hours work synthesising 'supply-side' and 'demand-side ' needs, and that this change in approach will therefore be counterproductive. KEY WORDS familyReduced hours work; part-time work, job-sharing; local government; work and RESUMEN Para 10s empleados a tiempo parcial y 10s empleados a puesto compartido, las autoridades municipales del Reino Unido se han dejinido como 'empleadores ejemplares ' , y a que han sido las necesidades de 10s mismos empleados que han dado el empuje principal a1 us0 de sistemas de trabajo a horarios reducidos. Para averiguar cuanto se aplica en la practica la dejinicidn de 'ejemplar', y hasta quk punto esto supera las conocidas desventajas de 10s sistemas de trabajo a horarios reducidos, se investigaron las causas y las consecuencias del trabajo a horarios reducidos entre personal profesional, gerencial, y administrativo de un municipio de Londres a mediados de 10s afios 1990. Se encontrd que se merecia la calificacidn de 'ejemplar', pero que se veia amenazado por un knfasis naciente en el us0 del trabajo a horarios reducidos mcis relacionado a la demanda y a las exigencias de servicio que a las necesidades de 10s empleados. Se sostiene que existe un fuerte argument0 comercia1 a favor de hacer mas us0 creativo del trabajo a horarios reducidos, con lo cual se sintetiza las necesidades de oferta y demanda, y que este cambio de enfoque por lo tanto serci contraproducente.

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“…The effects on teachers' employment of educational reform following the Educational Reform Act, 1988 led to firstly, a centralisation and bureaucratisation of the teaching process via the introduction of the National Curriculum and secondly, the decentralisation and development of management through enhanced accountability via inspection, compulsory appraisal and testing, and Local Financial Management of Schools (LMS), giving schools more direct authority over budgets and staff. The simultaneous centralisation of the curriculum and the decentralisation of financial management has changed teachers' employment conditions leading to greater work intensification (Healy andKraithman 1994, Sinclair et al 1996), more stress (Healy andKraithman 1994, Travers andCooper 1996), reduction in autonomy (Grey Taylor and Healy 1996, Sinclair et al 1996, increased class sizes (Healy andKraithman 1994, STRB 1994), and greater insecurity (Healy andKraithman 1994, Sinclair et al 1996). The reforms per se are not the focussed of this paper, but they form the structural and historical context for understanding the responses teacher trade unionists give when asked about union involvement in career development.…”

Section: Identifying the Themes The Educational Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Trade Union Role in Career Development: a Membership Perspective

Healy

1999

Industrial Relations Journal

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This article explores how a highly unionised and professional occupational group, school teachers, want their trade union to be involved in their career development. By taking an apparently individualistic concept and considering it from a collective perspective, the article provides insights into a neglected aspect of career development.Career development is normally viewed as a highly individualistic concept suggesting an emphasis either on an individual actively developing his or her career or on the organisation developing its employees through career development strategies. This article takes a less usual approach to the study of career development by placing it in the arena of industrial relations and thereby enabling it to be seen from a collective perspective. Trade unions have always had a role in career development, particularly in relation to the perceived equity associated with both the allocation of career development resources such as training and with decisions surrounding career progression. Further, unions have an established role in issues surrounding career curtailment, such as discipline and dismissal. At the same time, it is also the case that careers may be bound up with solidaristic forms of collectivism, where the impact on an individual's career is subsumed to the interests of the collectivity and where the career impact is indirect. This article aims to provide a broad understanding of the industrial relations of career by considering career in its structural context and exploring trade union members' beliefs about their union's role in career development. It does this by drawing on a study of a professional and highly unionised occupational school teachers, through a survey of NUT (National Union of Teachers) members, and exploring what this group believed its union should do to further career development.The article opens by considering three inter-related themes: firstly, the context of teachers' employment, secondly, the concept of 'career' and finally, the debates on collectivism and individualism. Using data on teachers' career development

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Different careers — equal professionals: women in teaching

Cited by 8 publications

References 0 publications

Structuring Commitments in Interrupted Careers: Career Breaks, Commitment and the Life Cycle in Teaching

Structuring Commitments in Interrupted Careers: Career Breaks, Commitment and the Life Cycle in Teaching

A best case scenario? Non-manual part-time work and job-sharing in UK local government in the 1990s

The Trade Union Role in Career Development: a Membership Perspective

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