The Teacher-Volunteer in Ontario
Abstract
This study explored the practice of “teacher-volunteerism” in Ontario, Canada. A teacher-volunteer refers to those teachers who are fully certified to be employed as teachers in Ontario and who remain active in the teaching labour market. Teachers in Ontario, facing a competitive labour market, have increasingly volunteered inside of schools. Drawing on qualitative interviews with unemployed and underemployed teachers in Ontario, the paper examines and discusses experiences concerning volunteerism within this context. Findings revealed that teacher-volunteerism is largely motivated by employment-related concerns, with volunteers engaging in various teaching-related practices inside of schools. Teacher-volunteerism is understood as a new expectation faced by un(der)employed teachers as they seek paid employment. The exploration of teacher-volunteerism leads to further interrogation surrounding the intersections of teachers’ work and labour in the field of education.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
a. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
b. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
c. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.