Abstract

MARIA CHALFIN, Coutinho; MAGRO, Márcia Luiza Pit Dal  and  BUDDE, Cristiane. Between pleasure and suffering: a study on the meanings of work for university teachers. Psicol. teor. prat. [online]. 2011, vol.13, n.2, pp. 154-167. ISSN 1516-3687.

Over the past years transformations are affecting the world of work, which is facing precarious work and flexibility in the workplace. This is reflecting in the community university academic staff work with flexible contracts, further intensification of the workload, and the needing to be versatile. In this context, it was held this research which aimed to understanding the meaning of pleasure and suffering at work for academic staff. It was interviewed eight academic staff and performed a qualitative analysis of the data. The results showed that the changes of the academic work caused implications for the meaning of this. They reported experiences predominant of suffering at work, due to the high workload which generates physical and mental exhaustion, and the insecurity related to the unpredictable work contracts. However, experiences of pleasure have been identified by the research participants, especially linked to the identity of being a teacher and the recognition of their work.

Keywords : occupational health; psychic suffering; teachers; higher education; job market.

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