Consequences of Time Poverty Due to Work Intensification: Lived Experiences of High School Teachers

This qualitative study sought to explore teachers’ lived experiences with work intensification in a public high school. Apple’s teacher work intensification thesis was used as a framework to evaluate how organizational conditions, time poverty, and job demands contribute to increasing complexity in teachers’ work as well as how they mediate their own responses to it. The research explored the lived experiences of 10 public high school teachers as they managed their perceived feelings of time poverty alongside increasing job demands. Data was collected through interviews, reflective journals, and a qualitative survey. Analysis strategies included in vivo coding, horizontalization, triangulation, and memoing. Member-checking and peer debriefing were done to verify the accuracy of the data and interpretations made from them. Four themes were identified from the results: organizational pressures exacerbate feelings of time poverty, goal conflict affects teachers’ professional identity, job demand complexity reduces the quality of teachers’ work, and commitment to students drives resilience despite time poverty. The results support prior research showing that changes in the amount and complexity of teachers’ work can exacerbate their feelings of time poverty and lead to negative job outcomes. Recommendations for school leadership were made with the intention of addressing organizational conditions that may lead to these negative job outcomes.