Teachers as disempowered and demoralised moral agents: School board management and teachers in Hong Kong

This study argues that teachers are disempowered and demoralised moral agents. Specifically, it uses a qualitative study of Hong Kong teachers to show that teachers’ agency in the pursuit of the moral goal of education is socially disempowered. The study shows that although teachers are committed to the moral goal of education, the obstacles to attaining this goal result in demoralisation. The difficulties consist of technical disempowerment (deprivation of power over one’s labour) and cognitive disempowerment (deprivation of power to identify the instructional value of teachers’ work), which are induced by managerialist educational reforms and school administration. Copyright © 2018 Society for Educational Studies.