High Maintenance: How Gender, Status, and Power Affect the Perceptions of the Custodian-Teacher Relationship Open Access

Abstract

A common theme in the sociology of work literature is how inequality is maintained in work settings where men generally hold higher status occupations and possess more power than women. Less common, however, are studies that examine the consequences of status and power processes where women hold a higher occupational status and more power than men. I address this limitation by examining perceptions of work roles made by teachers and custodians in an elementary school. Although teachers are expected to have a higher status in relation to custodians, their dependency upon them to maintain and clean the school may allow custodians to have more power over teachers in some of their interactions. To address this unique context, I analyze 26 semi-structured interviews of teachers and custodians working in a school district in the Northeast. The interviews reveal that teachers hesitate to recognize the lower status of custodians in the school and instead characterize their work environment more as a community than as a hierarchy. Custodians, on the other hand, indicate their lower status by referencing instances of blame they receive for items that go missing or for tasks that are inadequately fulfilled, disrespect, and through the identity work they perform. In spite of their lower status in the school, however, the nature of custodial duties fosters the dependence of teachers on custodians and enables custodians to possess more power over their individual interactions with teachers. This greater power is evidenced by ways custodians resist the requests of teachers and how teachers attempt to lessen their dependence. Implications for the operation of gender in influencing how teachers and custodians perceive their relative status and power are discussed.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction.....1

II. Theoretical Background and Predictions.....4

A. Gender and Work.....4

B. Status Processes.....5

C. Power Processes.....7

III. Methods.....12

A. Recruitment and Sample.....12

B. Interviews.....14

1. Custodian-Teacher Interactions.....14

2. Questions about Status.....15

3. Questions about Power.....15

C. Data Analysis.....16

IV. Results and Discussion.....17

A. Location of Custodians and Teachers in the Status Structure.....17

1. Perceptions of Status.....17

2. Identity Work.....23

B. Power in the Custodian-Teacher Relationship.....37

1. Perceptions of Dependence.....37

2. Resistance and Power Balancing.....41

3. Power in the School.....47

V. Conclusion.....51

VI. References.....56

VII. Appendices.....63

About this Dissertation

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School	Laney Graduate School
Department	Sociology
Degree	MA
Submission	Dissertation
Language	English
Research Field	Sociology, General
Keyword	Identity Work Gender Power Custodians Teachers Status
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Johnson, Cathryn, Emory University
Committee Members	Browne, Irene, Emory University Hegtvedt, Karen A, Emory University

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