Date of Award

5-1-2024

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Communication

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Annis Golden

Committee Members

Teresa Harrison, Matthew Matsaganis

Keywords

ICTs, Structuration, Technologies-in-Practice, Work and Family, Work Life Interrelationships

Subject Categories

Communication

Abstract

The primary focus of research on information and communication technologies (ICTs) and work-life interrelationships has been on traditional office work. However, occupations such as teaching are worthwhile to study because they are structured differently than a traditional office given that students are the direct consumers of teacher labor. There is a lot of face-to-face engagement with students in the classroom, while at the same time teacher’s jobs increasingly incorporate the usage of ICTs. Secondary schools for students (generally 14 through 18 years of age) are complex environments where both teachers and students are experiencing permeations of personal life into the school (or work) environment that are facilitated by ICTs. A distinctive quality of secondary schools as an organizational setting is the large number of digital natives who are present due to teachers educating a younger demographic. Digital natives are considered younger people who were raised in the digital world (Palfrey & Gasser, 2008). The research reported on in this paper examines 1) what organizational and institutional influences impact how high school teachers use ICTs to manage personal life concerns while on the job, 2) what the implications of using ICTs while at work in a high school setting are for the purpose of managing personal life with respect to problematizing boundaries between public and private, 3) how the teachers respond to student’s technology practices that function to manage the student’s work-life interrelationships, and 4) how the teacher’s technology practices that function to manage their own work-life interrelationships influence student’s technologically enabled work-life management practices. Findings indicate 1) that organizational and institutional influences that impacted how the high school teachers used ICTs to manage personal life concerns included the technological conditions that were present, the rules surrounding technology usage during the work day, and the heavy workload experienced by the teachers as three influencing factors. Teachers managed these conditions by employing technologies-in-practice of improvisation and productivity. Additionally, 2) the virtual, electronic environment in which they work, as well as the physical environment afforded them less privacy, and teachers had to navigate being constantly subjected to surveillance by their students, colleagues, and administration. 3) Teachers were also forced to respond to student’s technology practices that functioned to manage the student’s work-life interrelationships by employing various techniques to manage their student’s ICT use in order to preserve a classroom setting that was conducive to learning. 4) Teachers indirectly disciplined themselves to follow the school rules and set a good example for students, while also balancing the need to manage their own work-life boundaries and modeling for students how to do so. The teachers, students, and administrators ultimately constituted a community of practice where they were all intertwined and interacting together and their work was tied to and relied on the work of the other subgroups.

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