ERIC Number: EJ1470060
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2022
Pages: 19
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: EISSN-1920-4175
Available Date: 0000-00-00
Online and on the Picket Line: West Virginia Teachers' Use of an Online Community to Organize
Crystal D. Howell; Caleb Schmitzer
Critical Education, v13 n2 p59-76 2022
Teacher organizing in the twenty-first century presents new and understudied challenges and opportunities for union leaders and members. In this article, we explore the structure and function of the secret Facebook group created and used by teachers in West Virginia (USA) prior to, during, and since their historic statewide strike in February 2018. Working from poststructuralist and social justice unionist frameworks, we analyze focus group data generated with the group's admins and moderators as well as survey data collected from the group's general membership. Together, these data reveal a number of overt and covert group functions, including allowing members to imagine a new good teacher subjectivity. We argue that these covert functions--particularly reimagining the good teacher subjectivity--were and remain vital to the Teachers TOGETHER community and provide a model for other labor groups; as teachers around the United States and abroad continue to organize, leaders must make these functions (especially in online organizing spaces) just as explicit as more pragmatic functions.
Descriptors: Activism, Teacher Strikes, Social Media, Unions, Public School Teachers, Mass Media Use
Institute for Critical Education Studies. 2125 Main Mall, EDCP, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z4 Canada. Tel: 604-822-2830; Web site: https://ices.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: West Virginia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: N/A