Anthony Gary Dworkin

Coping with Reform: The Intermix of Teacher Morale, Teacher Burnout, and Teacher Accountability

Numerous portraits of public school teachers in the United States reveal that between one third and one half of teachers surveyed are alienated from their jobs, their colleagues, and students, feel burned out, want to quit, and wish that they had not chosen careers in teaching (Duke, 1984; Dworkin, 1985, 1987; Elam, Rose, & Gallup, 1993; LeCompte & Dworkin, 1991). In addition, cross-national work indicates that low morale among public school teachers is often in epidemic proportion in the developed nations of the world (Menlo & Poppleton, 1990; Poppleton, 1990). In many instances, diminished morale has been blamed on a variety of stressful factors associated with public school teaching, including the perceived absence of support by campus principals and other school administrators, other teachers, students, and parents. Additional Stressors include low salaries, diminished public confidence in public education, student discipline problems and school violence, declining student performance that has prompted more stringent school and teacher accountability measures, cultural and social class differences between teachers and their students that lead to a sense of ‘culture shock,’ and efforts to ‘teacher proof’ curricula and deprive teachers of a sense of professional autonomy (see Duke, 1984; Dworkin, 1987; LeCompte & Dworkin, 1991).

The Effects of Tokenism on Work Alienation among Urban Public School Teachers

Existing theories of the effects of relative numbers, and especially tokenism, on worker behaviors and attitudes are reviewed. Despite the absence of specific reference in the literature to worker alienation as an outcome of token status, an argument is presented drawing upon this research tradition and discussions of marginality to link this dependent variable to tokenism. In addition, often neglected status considerations are included to predict directionality in that linkage. Findings suggest that relative numbers play a minimal role in worker alienation. Some limited support for the relevance of status concerns is found, but only in sex tokenism. Absolute size appears to have negligible effects. It is suggested that theories of tokenism may need to define more narrowly the occupations to which they apply and also delineate other, more social psychological variables that may intervene between numbers and attitudes.

The Effects of Standards Based School Accountability on Teacher Burnout and Trust Relationships: A Longitudinal Analysis

Studies have shown that teacher burnout levels have risen since the inception of the Standards-based School Accountability Movement in the 1980s. Burnout is usually driven by job stress and is mitigated by supportiveness of principals and co-workers. Diminishing interpersonal trust heightens burnout and can be circular. High-stakes accountability, in which job security is threatened, conjoined with changes in school safety, and budgetary pressures, not only exacerbate burnout, but they diminish the capacity of peers and supervisors to provide social support. Trust relationships are more likely to thrive when they are organic in nature and based on positive affect and interpersonal cohesion. Externally-imposed accountability systems, such as specified under No Child Left Behind, emphasize contractual, bureaucratic trust, and assume that the school districts and their employees cannot be trusted to perform competently and benevolently. The result is an altered social contract. The shift from organic to contractual trust weakens relationships and accelerates burnout. Longitudinal data on burnout among samples of more than 8,000 Texas teachers, surveyed between 2002 and 2012, are linked to changes in stress, trust, accountability standards, school safety, and budgetary cuts. The loss of teacher trust in relationships with administrators, colleagues, parents, and students has paralleled shifts in accountability standards and related external factors.

Grade Retention and Social Promotion in Texas 1994-99: An Assessment of Academic Achievement among Elementary School Students

To make schools more accountable for the performance of students, many school districts as well as entire states have proposed more rigorous standards to help ensure that pupils have the basic skills necessary to be successful in school. Many public and private sector decisionmakers have criticized the common practice of social promotion; that is, allowing students to progress to the next grade level without having already learned the material required for the current grade. The public in general views the practice of social promotion or grade placement as detrimental to low-performing students who are promoted without requisite skills because such students are presumed to fall further behind their more academically proficient classmates. Consequently, some states and school districts have proposed or adopted strict policies of retention that require a low-achieving student to remain in the same grade until meeting a specified level of proficiency.1 Although these newer standards for promotion may vary across

Reviews: Education: Andy Green, John Preston and Jan Germen Janmaat, Education, Equality and Social Cohesion: A Comparative Analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, 226 pp., ISBN 1403987971, £45.00/US

Education, Equality and Social Cohesion: A Comparative Analysis is an important book with substantial policy implications for a globalizing world. The authors rely on a comparative cross-cultural approach involving national survey and social indicator data to explore the role of education in the creation of social cohesion in a globalizing world. The book is an expansion of earlier reports and publications by Green and Preston and augmented by more extensive analyses. The central core of data used is from 15 advanced democracies for which information on social cohesion, skill and income distribution are available. The analyses are supplemented by data on trust, civic participation and income distribution from 38 developed and developing nations. Data from an array of sources are used, including the World Values Survey (WVS), the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS), Interpol data on national crime statistics and the International Crime Victim Survey (ICVS). Additionally, the authors use World Bank statistics to provide Gini coefficients for educational and income inequalities. Model building and testing was done using multivariate and univariate statistics. After a review of literature on social cohesion, including a focus on Putnam’s works, the authors wrestle with an operationalization of social cohesion. Numerous indicators can be used to measure social cohesion, including the presence of shared norms and values, a shared sense of community and identity, evidence of societal stability, institutions that promote shared risks and benefits, equity in the distribution of resources (educational, occupational and income), and the presence of an active society with an involved citizenry. However, the authors conclude that social cohesion is more of a process than a static condition. Further, after the test of models to explain social cohesion the authors conclude

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the United Kingdom, the United States of America, France, the Federal Republic of Germany and the European Communities. He also surveys the free movement of special classes of persons, namely, refugees, diplomats, consuls, crew members of ships and aircraft, and international officials. Dr. Goodwin-Gill successfully illustrates that the often assumed absolute discretion attributed to states to control ingress and egress of persons is subject to certain established and emerging international restrictions. Although discretionary powers are wide concerning admission to and expulsion from the territority of each nation, there is ample authority to show that it is not absolute in practice and is subject to international scrutiny. Law and practice in this field is constantly changing. Dr. Goodwin-Gill brings us upto-date as to the international developments and provides State prototypes of current practices in this excellent treatise.

Book Review: Between Two Cultures: Migrants and Minorities in BritainBetween Two Cultures: Migrants and Minorities in Britain. By WatsonJames L.Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1977. Pp. 338.

Part I: Theoretical Perspectives. Introduction. 2. What Is a Minority? 3. The Distributive Dimension. 4. The Organizational Dimension. 5. The Social Psychological Dimension. 6. Theories of Minority-Group Process. 7. New Directions. Part II: The Reports. Introductory Comments. 8. African Americans in Contemporary America: Progress and Retrenchment. 9. Mexican Americans. 10. Puerto Ricans in the U.S. 11. Native Americans. 12. Central Americans in the U.S. 13. Japanese Americans: Stories about Race in America. 14. Chinese Americans: From Exclusion to Prosperity? 15. Southeast Asian Americans in the United States: The Refugees and the Refuge. 16. Jewish Americans. 17. Irish Americans. 18. Women: The Fifty-One Percent Minority.