Gendered Discourse about Special Education Teaching as Care Work: Implications for Improving Inequitable Working Conditions

Unsustainable working conditions are harmful to special educators and students; yet, they are normalized in schools. Popular discourse valorizes a willingness to overwork and sacrifice one's own well-being as a laudable attribute of “good teachers.” We argue that working conditions underlie the expectation that special educators should overwork, and that teachers' working conditions reflect society's investments in the students who they serve; inequities in teachers' working conditions based on students' ability, race/ethnicity, and class reflect inequitable investments in students with disabilities, students of color, students living in poor communities, and students with multiple marginalized identity markers. We contend that Discourse about teaching as gendered care work – as the natural work of maternal, caring women – serves to absolve society of responsibility for eliminating these inequities, instead devolving that responsibility onto individual teachers who are expected to sacrifice their own well-being to compensate for social disinvestment in their students' lives. Thus, we contend that the gendered Discourse about teaching, especially special education teaching, is entangled with ableism, racism, and classism, and serves to deflect responsibility for addressing inequities away from those with capacity to change them (e.g., leaders, policymakers).