A labour of love? The invisible work of caring teachers during Covid-19

ABSTRACT

Over the last few months, the sociological experiment generated by lockdowns has triggered a plethora of educational debates and research publications. However, the care work enacted by teachers has rarely been at the core of these analyses. As other scholars have previously highlighted, caring in teaching requires not only ‘love’ but also ‘labour’. This means that it entails emotional, social, material and political costs, which are often unacknowledged or devalued. In this study, we delve into the experiences of a small group of caring teachers in Spain to explore the nature and effect of their care work during lockdown. Despite decades of feminist studies showing the value of care work, the stories of the teachers interviewed show the lack of recognition of caring in teaching. The article concludes with a call to problematise the idea of caring in teaching as a labour of love.

KEYWORDS:

• Care work
• caring teachers
• Covid-19 pandemic
• lockdown
• Spain

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author Lorea Romero disclosed receipt of the financial support, for the research of this article, of the Predoctoral Program for Research Training of the University of Cantabria, Concepción Arenal, cofounded whit the Government of Cantabria, Spain (2017 call).