Resilience through Crisis: Women Teachers’ Autonomy and Professional Identity in the Post-Pandemic Era

Abstract

Teacher autonomy is considered essential for good-quality education, but Nepal's educational policies are almost completely dominated by students' needs, leaving teachers, especially female teachers, invisible. Female teachers are faced with constraints from the educational institutions, patriarchy that is deeply ingrained in our society, and unequal share of childcare responsibilities, which hinder their professional judgment in the classrooms. Narrative inquiry was chosen as the research method in this research, based on socio-cultural theory by Vygotsky and three-dimensional narrative framework by Clandinin and Connelly. Four experienced secondary-level women teachers of Kageshwori Manohara Municipality, Kathmandu were selected purposefully and data were collected using in-depth interview techniques. What was discovered was quite an interesting contradiction related to the pandemic situation. The rapid transition to online teaching imposed by the virus helped women teachers in developing digital competencies, forming new relationships with other teachers, and building up confidence. But it also had a hidden downside since the additional caregiving imposed by the pandemic restricted this development process. And, as schools are opened now, teachers are concerned about the loss of their newly developed roles and abilities.