Overworked and stressed teachers under market economy: Case Study in Northwest China

Abstract

<p>This chapter is based on a case study conducted in Xisheng (pseudonym promised to the participants for anonymity purposes) in Northwest China to explore teachers’ perspectives on teaching under the market economy system. The original plan was to study local indigenous teachers, but that was not possible due to political sensitivity of the region at the time of data collection. As a result, we interviewed mostly Han teachers, including as many local indigenous teachers as possible. We think that the study is still useful as it was the first study of its kind and that it was informative regarding the impact of the market economy on teachers in northwestern China. Some findings of the study were discussed in Beckett (2012) and Guo et al. (2013). In this chapter, we refer to that work and discuss additional data that were not discussed in those publications. The remainder of the chapter discusses ideological and sociocultural contexts and research methods of the study followed by findings and discussions. We conclude with limitations and implications of the study.</p>