Paper
Challenging Traditional Learning-to-Labor Processes: Teacher Work Socialization through Social Media in Santa Fe, Argentina
presenters
Andy Espinoza-Cara
Nationality: Argentina
Residence: Argentina
Universidad Nacional de Rosario
Presence:Online
Keywords:
Socialization, Education workers, Social media, Precarious employment, Relational anthropology
Abstract:
This paper presents a socio-anthropological analysis of the socialization processes of education workers employed by the Ministry of Education in Santa Fe, Argentina, over the last 5 years. The research adopts a relational anthropology perspective, understanding the social as a complex of contradictory and changing relationships, energized by subjects in their daily interactions. It seeks to understand singular aspects of the configuration and dynamics of these relationships, seen as the product of socio-historical processes linking different levels (economic, political, sociocultural). Drawing from anthropology of education and anthropology of work, the study examines how workers socialize and learn to "how to be workers". This learning occurs mainly outside the school work environment, through interactions with fellow workers on social media. There, they acquire practical knowledge about entering the teaching profession and learning about the hierarchical structure of the education ministry, its bureaucracy, and labor union issues. The use of social networks for labor socialization has become particularly relevant due to the precariousness of teaching employment, especially in secondary schools, where workers often have little face-to-face interaction with other teachers. In these contexts, social networks become key places for learning processes about labor that traditional anthropologies around education usually overlook. In the daily life of the groups, discussions revolve around party politics, inclusion, and recently, union problems where conflicting interests between teachers are often expressed. From a relational anthropological perspective attentive to social media interactions, the study illuminates the complexities and tensions inherent in capital-labor relations in education, and the socio-historical and hegemonic processes structuring them. It becomes evident how, in a context of job insecurity, virtual spaces play a central role in the socialization and learning of teaching workers, configuring new dynamics that challenge traditional conceptions about labor learning processes in education.