Schooling and the Crisis of Care

Changes in work and family structures and the restructuring of the welfare state in advanced capitalism have contributed to what Nancy Fraser has framed as a crisis of care. Work-life balance becomes increasingly more fragile for substantial segments of the population as caring-related activities related to attending to children, elders, and those with disabilities or illness are commodified or downloaded to households. While this has diluted the levels or quality of care for care recipients, it has also created pressures on those who provide care (both unpaid labour as well as teachers and other care workers), who are confronted with intensified workloads and stresses in their own lives.

These issues have significant consequences for schooling and those who work in and attend schools, contributing in part to a global teacher shortage while adversely affecting student performance and learning environments. Teacher and other educational care workers must respond to diverse manifestations of a care deficit with many students undertaking or affected by household-related demands, mental health or addiction-related issues, limited parental engagement with schooling, and many other problems. Some educational jurisdictions are developing strategies to address these issues, but more generally teachers and educational workers lack appropriate resources or administrative support to sustain their workloads.

This session invites papers that explore these or other implications of the crisis of care for schooling, students, and educational workers, as well as papers that identify strategies employed to address care-related problems associated with schooling.