The Overwhelming Need: How the Unequal Political Economy Shapes Urban Teachers’ Working Conditions

Abstract

Although the literature on teacher working conditions often cites student- and school-level factors as contributors to teacher turnover in high-poverty urban schools, the larger context of social and economic inequality within which these factors are situated is often overlooked. This mixed-methods study draws upon a survey of nearly 800 California public high school teachers and case studies of two high-poverty urban high schools to highlight the ways that inequality structures teacher time and student learning in these schools. We highlight efforts teachers make to meet student needs and exert professional agency within the broader social ecology of inequality.