Pre-service teachers’ views of schools as workplaces in a system of social, cultural and religious division: to be “selfish” or to be a “hero”?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Teachers seeking work in market-oriented schooling systems confront a range of settings within which they might teach. This article presents the views of ten teachers on the cusp of beginning teaching in the market-oriented schooling system of Australia, regarding the school or schools they would like to work in as teachers. Data were gathered via in-depth, semi-structured interviews and analysed with reference to Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, field, doxa and misrecognition. Key considerations of pre-service teachers are analysed as falling into two broad categories: feeling like a “professional”, and considerations of equity (with “equity” being variously defined). I argue that a habitus formed within the neoliberal doxa of the education system in Australia provides fertile ground for these new teachers to feel like a “professional” in some schooling fields more than others, with an associated tension of needing to be either “selfish” or a “hero” when thinking about where they would like to work. I conclude by highlighting some of the difficulties present in each of these positions, both problematic if schools are understood as socio-cultural institutions located in a diverse national landscape.