Teachers' Work
in the
Context of COVID-19
Research Project
Researchers from the University of California, the University of Puget Sound, and Lewis & Clark College are studying how COVID-19 is affecting teachers’ work. Since spring of 2020, the project has documented and analyzed teachers’ lived experience of teaching during the pandemic and implications for the teaching profession. We are centering and amplifying the collective voices of K-12 educators in the policy and public discourse.
The Research Team
Principal Investigators
Dr. Bartlett is an Associate Professor of Education at UC Santa Cruz. Her research interests include teachers' professional commitment and conceptions of teachers' role. She studies schools as workplaces for teachers and the conditions of teachers' work.
Dr. Little is Professor Emeritus of Education from UC Berkeley. Her research interests center on the organizational and occupational contexts of teaching, with special attention to teachers' collegial relationships and to the contexts, policies, and practices of teachers' professional development.
Dr. Thompson is an Assistant Professor of Education at the University of Puget Sound. Her research focuses on the contours of the teacher workforce and the conditions that attract, support, and retain teachers in schools.
Dr. Darwich is an Assistant Professor of Education at Lewis & Clark College. Her research interests focus on the social and emotional well being of teachers and students.
The Research Team
Research Assistants
Riley Collins
Riley Collins is a Ph.D. student in the Education Department at UC Santa Cruz. Her research interests center on teacher labor organizing, social movement unionism, and shifting conceptions of teachers’ work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Luis Ramirez
Luis Ramirez is a graduate of UC Santa Cruz’s class of 2020, where he double majored in sociology, politics and Latin America Latino studies. His interests are situated on immigrant education and the intersectionality of student activism. He served as a research assistant from June to Nov 2020.
Lila Harte
Lila Harte is a senior at UCSC studying Literature with a minor in Education. Her interests in research surround the mental resilience of teachers and students with a focus on how racial inequality furthers the achievement gap.
Iris Hinds Weaver
Iris Hinds Weaver, MA, MAT is a teacher, an Education Consultant and Advocate. She has a wide experience in education as a classroom teacher, an international educational consultant and advocate, and as an advisor for future teachers at UC Santa Cruz. Her research interests focus on teachers’ work and currently on teaching and parenting in the time of COVID-19.
Project Advisors
Dr Julia E. Koppich
Dr. Julia Koppich is an expert on labor-management relations and co-author of two books, A Union of Professionals and United Mind Workers: Unions and Teaching in the Knowledge Society. She has been principal researcher on studies of urban school change, teacher evaluation and compensation, and the impact of federal policy on states and local school districts. She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Administration and Policy Analysis from the University of California Berkeley.
Dr. Jessica Charles is Director of Scholarship on Educator Practice at Bank Street Graduate School of Education. Her research focuses on teaching practice, the development of teachers, and the research of teachers, teaching and teacher education
Dr. Ilana Horn is a Professor of Math Education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Vanderbilt University. Her scholarship lies at the intersection of mathematics education, learning sciences, and the sociology of teachers' work. She is the author of numerous publications including the book Motivated: Designing Math Classrooms were Students Want to Learn. She is currently working on research examining how highly-committed secondary mathematics teachers in the U.S. responded as they shifted their instruction online in response to the pandemic.