Gender, “Symbolic Domination”, and Female Work: The case of teacher education

Abstract In this article I explore the part played by liberal democratic ideology in the regulation of female work, in particular, the work of women teacher educators and contract researchers in British and Canadian teacher education departments. My goal is to examine the relationship between symbolic notions of female domesticity and service as they have been expressed in liberal understandings of the nation state across time, together with accounts of contemporary working life as described by differently positioned women workers in teacher education. Central to the argument I make is the assertion that women's work and its symbolic representation in teacher education constitute powerful symbolic elements in the ongoing regulation of women as non-citizens. In following the work of feminist political theorists and cultural sociologists, I also examine the cultural, material, and social power of historicized visions of the female as "domestic servant", as daughter of the nation state, and as "deviant non-citizen" as they are reflected in the contemporary working lives of women teacher educators. I extend my appreciation to the women participants in this study. Without their commitment to this project the writing of this paper would not have been possible. I also thank Phil Gardner and Litsa Tsuhoulis for editorial comments on an earlier draft of this article. I wish to thank Julie McLeod for introducing me to the work of Lois McNay. Finally, I'm grateful to Sandra Acker for allowing me to reproduce quotes from our collaborative SSHRC project Transitions and traditions in teacher education herein and from an additional joint publication (Dillabough & Acker, Citation2002). Support for this research was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada, the Connaught Fund at the University of Toronto and the Spencer Foundation. Notes 1. I am not suggesting here that by engaging in acts of "symbolic subversion" that women ultimately alter the larger power structures of institutional life. Rather, my aim is more theoretically abstract in that it is designed to show how women engage in forms of ethical risk taking which may shift the meanings attributed to female work in public consciousness. Yet, I do not argue that perceived forms of risk taking are always viewed by women as symbolic subversion in an idealistic sense. Rather, they are reconstituted social understandings of selfhood and worker identification which shift the conditions upon which women engage as workers. Such risk taking practices also address Alison Weir's (Citation1997) concerns about the larger questions of female identity which are being imposed indirectly here, such as: "what does … it mean to identify a category of women? Is there any way of affirming any kind of women's identity without repressing the differences of race, class, culture, sexual orientation and so on, which divide women without re-inscribing the oppressive institutions through which gender identity has been constituted, and without denying the wide historical and cultural variation of what the concept of women means?" (pp. 1–3). 2. In this paper, space represents an organized material dimension of working life when placed in contrast to the notion of space as a fluid, decontextualized arena where discourses and identities are simply performed in honour of regulation or governance. Here I am suggesting, like Doreen Massey, that space is one social form characterized by a particular set of socio-cultural and material conditions which play a part in reproducing particular ideas about female workers (in specific disciplines). 3. This term is borrowed from Pierre Bourdieu's book The tyranny of the market and refers to professions which have been historically supported by the "left hand of the state". See Dillabough and Acker (Citation2002) for a discussion of the relationship between teacher education and the "social work" professions. 4. This reflection by Pierre Bourdieu seems remarkably similar to the work of an eminent feminist post-structuralist theorist, Judith Butler, and her concern with the normative functions of the term "gender binary". Yet what is intriguing about Bourdieu's work (despite its decidedly continental overtones) is that it highlights the power of an analysis of the social world in exposing how such symbols are embedded in everyday practice. It is this concern with social analysis and the need to expose the processes which lead to social and cultural reproduction which are important to the author of this article. 5. Yet, as I attempt to show, such static social forms are also challenged by a variety of changing forces, such as de-traditionalization, globalizing reforms, and the rise of novel political affiliations with the state. 6. See also Steadman (Citation1986). 7. Data from teacher educators who were both permanent faculty and contract researchers are reported herein. 8. This data source is presented here with the permission of Sandra Acker, the Principal Investigator (PI) on the Canadian research project. 9. A small portion of the analytical work in this paper serves as an extension of related published work (Dillabough, Citation1999, Citation2000). 10. A small sample of the quotes in the data analysis section of this paper have appeared in Dillabough (Citation1999, Citation2000) and Dillabough and Acker (Citation2002). 11. These women were on temporary contracts at the time this study was undertaken. 12. I am indebted here to my colleague, Andre Mazawi, for his insight regarding the inter-textuality embedded in the corresponding quote. 13. Three quotes have been drawn from data collected in the Traditions and Transitions project. The PI, Sandra Acker, permitted the use of these quotes here. 14. These data are drawn from a study conducted by Sandra Acker (2002), cited in Dillabough and Acker (Citation2002, pp. 227–260). 15. De-traditionalization refers to Beck's (Citation1992) idea that individuals in a risk society are less tied to tradition and rituals and are therefore more detached (at least in part) from normative gender roles and responsibilities in the state. 16. One of the female participants was interviewed by S. Acker in Traditions and transitions in teacher education (Acker et al., Citation1999).

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