Teacher Unionism and Teacher Professionalization: A Qualitative Case Study of Alberta Charter School Teachers

• Author / Creator

  Everitt, Lisa Meredith

• Publicly funded charter schools in Alberta were created by the Alberta legislature in 1994. The stated rationale for charter schools was that parents and students needed more choice within the public education system (Alberta Education, 2011). However, at the time that charter schools were being established, the legislative structures did not provide charter school teachers with automatic membership in the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA). Subsequent to 1994, in five Alberta charter schools, teachers voted to join the ATA to bargain collective agreements with their school boards. I was interested in how charter school teachers’ sense of professionalism was or was not influenced by becoming ATA members.
  My qualitative case study investigated the relationship between Alberta charter school teachers’ unionizing and how this impacted upon professionalization. Data collection occurred through semi-structured interviews with 12 teachers drawn from 5 unionized charter schools. Interviews were augmented by reviewing the collective agreements between the ATA and these charter school boards. Strauss’ (1978) negotiated order theory was the theoretical lens through which I collected, analyzed, and interpreted the data. Negotiated order theory provided a framework for gaining insight into how social worlds are constructed over time by considering the direct negotiations between the teachers, the negotiations at the bargaining table with the school board and ATA present, and by the interplay of both of these phenomena was influenced by broader macroscopic structures such as legislation.
  
  The findings of my study suggest that: (a) unionization was perceived as a mechanism by which charter school teachers earned public status and respect as professionals; (b) formal organization through unions established a more secure employment relationship for charter school teachers; and (c) unionizing solidified charter school teachers as a collective body of professionals. This study contributes to knowledge about the compatibility of unionism and professionalization as it relates to the occupation of teaching, an area of study that has not been deeply explored.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Qualitative case study
  • negotiated order theory
  • charter schools
  • teacher unionism
  • collective bargaining
  • semi-structured interviews
  • teacher professionalization
  • social constructionism

• Graduation date

  Spring 2020

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Doctor of Education

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-a2d0-2y57

• License

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