School Teachers’ Professional Identity in the Context ofthe Precariatization of Social and Labor Relations in Large Russian Cities

Abstract

The paper is based on a survey of public school teachers in Russian large cities (Moscow, Rostov-on-Don and Kazan). In 2017 the survey was conducted to study the perception of social and economic situation by teachers, and the estimation of the labor precariatization degree. Based on the assessment of their professional identity according to the selected typological criteria (the occupational prestige, the place of professional identity in the general structure of identification, labor motivation, professional values, job satisfaction, career orientations), the prevalence of pseudo-positive identity with diffusion elements is revealed among teachers. Moscow educators, while they evaluate higher the quality of life and the prestige of their work than teachers from Rostov and Kazan, are characterized by a higher degree of dissatisfaction with the content and results of their professional activity. The polyethnicity of the city’s population is not a significant factor in the formation of the interviewed teachers’ identity. Corporate loyalty (rewarded by corporate paternalism), socially oriented motivation, socio-economic vulnerability (especially for province teachers) characterize the existing model of the professional identity in the teaching community. Heavy administrative burden for the teachers’ corps, the high social demands for the results of their work and the precariatization of teacher’s labor create risks for maintaining of the positive professional identity and reduce the reform potential of the school.