Narrative inquiry on early-career teachers’ stories of Pagdadala in caring for students in low-resource urban public schools

Purpose: In low-resource public schools, these costs may be amplified for early career teachers who help students bear increasingly complex burdens despite lack of resources and specialized support. However, there are limited studies on how care work and its costs are experienced by early-career Filipino public school teachers in low-resource contexts. Hence, the purpose of this study is to examine teachers’ stories of caring for burdened students using an integrative and critical narrative inquiry based on Clandinin’s narrative framework and Decenteceo’s cultural story-model of Pagdadala(i.e. burden-bearing). Methods: Field texts were collected through in-depth interviews with ten (10) female teacher advisers over two months. Participants came from eight (8) different public schools catering to students from low-resource communities in Marikina City, Navotas City and Quezon City. Results: Findings showed four narrative pathways ofpagdadalaof caring that teachers lived and told across the caring landscape: shared, overextended, asserted, and curtailed. These non-linear pathways reflect how teachers’ experience of care work is shaped by the overlapping sphere of influence of homes, schools and communities in student care. Conclusions: Complimenting literature on care work in education using Clandinin’s narrative inquiry framework that integrated Decenteceo’sPagdadalamodel, this study has offered a storied map of co-burden-bearing that was shaped by the social, spatial and temporal contexts in low-resource urban public schools. Theoretical and practical implications highlight the dynamics of bigat-gaanin care work and the potential advantage of leveraging on sharedpagdadalaand spaces of pagpapahingain supporting teacher wellbeing.