Review by Choice Review
Dworkin's text is far less than satisfying in exploring the topic of teacher burnout. The body of the study focuses on a large urban, southern public school and was originally done to discern the effect of integration on teacher burnout and student learning outcomes. While offering some insight into this particular question, the work lends little understanding or substantial analysis of the complex question of teachers and work alienation. Dworkin's focus is narrow and basically uncritical of the larger economic and political forces that serve to structure work in large institutional settings. Therefore his conclusions seem redundant and finally offer no real insights into how we can come to understand alienation and work or how to deal with it. A reader might find more grist on this subject from the growing body of literature broadly called ``the new sociology of education.'' This literature is more soundly grounded in the radical critique of the relationship of schools and education to culture, ideology, and the larger social and economic forces that serve to structure schoolwork, practice, and meaning. Works by Michael Apple and Henry Giroux are far more useful and infinitely more satisfying in helping one to truly understand the structural causes of teacher burnout. Dworkin's text is heavy on empirical analysis and full of statistical tables; it contains a fairly complex appendix. The study is substantially documented and findings are well summarized at the end of chapters and in a conclusion to the entire text. All in all, the book is interesting for its descriptive qualities but adds very little to our understanding of work alienation in the modern age.-M.J. Carbone, Muhlenberg College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
