Babysitters Or Guest Teachers: Substitute Teacher Identity Management in the Larger Organizational Culture of a School District

This study applies the concepts of organizational culture and identification to the area of temporary labor. Specifically, I focused on substitute teachers both for personal and scholarly reasons. I invoked a structurational approach to demonstrate the relationship between organizational culture and identification and how substitutes manage between their different identity sources. The study assessed the degree to which substitutes attached to fundamental identity sources (professional, occupational, and organizational) as well as the structures and processes which manifested them. The results of the organizational identification questionnaire indicated that substitutes identify most with the professional identity source. While the occupational identity source scored a higher level of attachment than organization, the overall difference did not reach a level of significance. Within each identity source, substitutes tended to embrace nearly binary identity structures, one which reflected a close attachment to this line of work and the other which privileged a distancing from it. The professional identity source produced a structural configuration in which its structures partially bifurcated by not completely. The occupational and organizational sources, however, had a complete separation between identity structures. This work also made evident the pervasive presence of one identity source into the realms of another. In other words, while it seemed tempting to separate the sources on paper, in practice their compartmentalized management proved elusive. The paper finishes with practical and theoretical implications.