“You have to be willing to make the sacrifice”: K-12 teacher narratives and the coercion of social responsibility

Abstract

ABSTRACT Public K-12 education in the United States struggles with competing narratives regarding its function and role. The neoliberal push to quantify education has led to increased legislation relating to state testing as well as public debate about teachers’ roles and responsibilities. A case study of teachers who were teaching in Oklahoma at the time of the 2018 Oklahoma Teacher Walkout offers insight into how teachers negotiate these competing narratives. Many teachers considered teaching to be a “calling,” which aligns with social contract theory where individuals will yield personal interests for the common good. Teachers viewed their occupation as time-intensive and described themselves using the competing narratives caregiver and expert. Teachers described their social contract in ways that align with the ideas of caveat emptor or bait and switch. The 2018 Oklahoma Teacher Walkout occurred because the social contract was broken, and teachers began advocating for themselves. A new communication theory I call the coercion of social responsibility (CoerSR) explains how internalized social contracts acted to constrain teachers’ actions. The ways in which teachers countered CoerSR are identified.