EPAA/AAPE is a peer-reviewed, open-access, international, multilingual, and multidisciplinary journal designed for researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and development analysts concerned with education policies. EPAA/AAPE accepts unpublished original manuscripts in English, Spanish and Portuguese without restriction as to conceptual and methodological perspectives, time or place. EPAA/AAPE publishes issues comprised of empirical articles, commentaries, and special issues at roughly weekly intervals, all of which pertain to educational policy, with direct implications for educational policy.
Dr. Catherine Scott, Coordinator of Research Development, University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury, Richmond NSW 2753 Phone: +61 2 4570 1574, Fax + 61 4570 1686, Email: c.scott@uws.edu.au.
Barbara Stone The Imagination Group
Dr. Barbara Stone, Educational Consultant, The Imagination Group, St Louis, MO.
Steve Dinham University of Western Sydney
Dr. Steve Dinham, Associate Professor, School Teaching and Educational Studies, University of Western Sydney, Nepean. PO Box 10, Kingswood NSW 2747, Phone: +61 2 4736 0294, Fax: +61 2 4736 0400. Email: s.dinham@uws.edu.au.
This article reports the results of research into the career motivation and satisfaction of a sample of over 3,000 teachers and school administrators in four countries: Australia, New Zealand, England, and the USA. Using the participants' own words, we explore the effects on educators of recent international educational change, understood here as a subcategory of more general social trends. Bourdieu's concepts of the Right and Left Hands of the state are used to interpret the experience of teaching in a climate where, while more is expected and demanded of schools, and schools and teachers are scrutinised as never before, educational resources have become scarcer, and the status and image of teaching as a profession has declined.
Keywords
Australia; New Zealand; England; USA; Teacher satisfaction; International; Bourdieu; Right and Left Hands