The Associations Between Teachers’ Consciousness of Resistance, Professional Autonomy, and Their Inclination to Participate in Teachers’ Organization: A Study of Taitung Author:Chuan-Li Su & Yij-Jyh Hwang
After the Labor Union Act revision in June 2010, teachers may legally form teachers’unions. However in a county or city, the participation rate of teachers’ unions must behigher than 50% to be legally qualified with negotiating rights. Most studies on teachers’unions focused on potential forthcoming problems while the factors affecting teachers’inclination towards participating teachers’ unions were less investigated. The present studyuses the 2008 full-time teachers’ census data in Taitung and conducts a path analysis onthe influence mechanism of teachers’ inclination to participate in organizations. The majorfindings are: (1) 20.8% of teachers in Taitung show inclination to participate in teachers’unions whereas 42.1% of them incline to join teachers’ associations. (2) Teachers withmore than 16 years of service are less inclined to join teachers’ unions than theircounterparts with 0-5 years of service; teachers with administrative responsibilities andsubstitute teachers are less inclined to join teachers’ unions than full-time teachers. (3) Thehigher the teachers’ resistance consciousness and consciousness of professional autonomy,the higher the inclination to participate in teachers’ unions and associations. (4) Teacherswho take director positions are less inclined to join teachers’ unions because they havelower resistance consciousness; substitute teachers show lower inclination to participate inteachers’ unions due to lower consciousness of professional autonomy.
Keywords: resistance consciousness, teachers’ organization, the consciousness of professional autonomy