This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Hepburn, A. Articles by Brown, S. D. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Teacher Stress and the Management of Accountability

Nottingham Trent University, alexa.hepburn{at}ntu.ac.uk

Steven D. Brown

Department of Human Sciences, Loughborough University, s.d.brown{at}lboro.ac.uk

In this article we explore how teachers can draw upon the language of stress to perform strategically important and often politically sensitive social acts. Our aim will be to show that the description of teaching problems as a matter of ‘stress’ has important social and political implications for teachers. To do this we draw upon interviews with Scottish secondary school teachers; these interviews have been subjected to close textual analysis, informed by some of the basic principles of discursive psychology. The analysis shows teachers flexibly employing stress as a way of managing their own accountability, and of making sense of their institutional roles and relationships. To conclude, we suggest that employing stress as an individualized category not only suppresses its flexibility, but also encourages both teachers and their employers to offer token measures to manage it at a psychological level, rather than engaging in proper debate about the state of the profession.

Key Words: accountability • discursive psychology • power • teacher stress

Human Relations, Vol. 54, No. 6, 691-715 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/0018726701546001


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				C. Coupland, A. D. Brown, K. Daniels, and M. Humphreys Saying it with feeling: Analysing speakable emotions Human Relations, March 1, 2008; 61(3): 327 - 353. [Abstract] [PDF]

				R. Randall, T. Cox, and A. Griffiths Participants' accounts of a stress management intervention Human Relations, August 1, 2007; 60(8): 1181 - 1209. [Abstract] [PDF]

				J. Chandler, J. Barry, and H. Clark Stressing Academe: The Wear and Tear of the New Public Management Human Relations, September 1, 2002; 55(9): 1051 - 1069. [Abstract] [PDF]