Full bibliography

In the neoliberal era, where teachers’ unions have suffered from a public backlash and legislative moves that have restricted collective bargaining rights and labour protections for educators, individual educators are becoming more politically active outside their unions. Some teachers are using a “narrative of care” when engaging in political dissent and resistance to articulate the caring components of their work and push back against a public dialogue that has focused on poorly performing schools and the financial burden of public education to taxpayers. This study explores two Twitter campaigns – #EvaluateThat in the US and #ThisIsMyStrikePay in British Columbia – to analyze how narratives of care are articulated and how these articulations act as a form of political dissent and resistance. I argue, building on the work of Donna Baines, Stephen Ackroyd, and Paul Thompson, that educators’ participation in these Twitter campaigns represents a form of grassroots dissent, which allows them to articulate their multiple identities – as educators, workers engaged in caring labour, and unionists. Moreover, this informal form of resistance can generate a stronger sense of solidarity rooted in these identities, which can intersect with and encourage participation in formal labour resistance and political activism.