Teachers’ responses to pandemic uncertainty and the (re)organization of schooling
摘要
The COVID-19 pandemic presented novel and heightened levels of uncertainty for educators. Contributing to a growing literature conceptualizing the role of uncertainty in organizational change, this article explores the changes in practice that teachers made during the pandemic as efforts to either mitigate or leverage different types of uncertainty in the environment and in the technical work of teaching. Semi-structured interviews conducted with a purposive sample of 51 teachers over two years indicate that they perceived the pandemic’s uncertainties as an opportunity to reconsider the alignment of their own beliefs and practices as well as an imperative to find ways to weather increased day-to-day turbulence. Moreover, participants reflected on the ways the pandemic has been replaced by new sources of uncertainty regarding their connections to colleagues and students’ families. Drawing on organizational theories, I argue that these changes in practice and perception suggest that a re-organization of schools is underway.