Should elementary and junior high school teachers be categorized as
“professionals,” “semi-professionals,” or “non-professional” white-collar working
class and then to identify with working class? This is still controversial, and we have
not found quantitative evidences in the academic world. Using the data from “Social
Change Survey in Taiwan,” we explore the differences of objective class position and
subjective class identification between teachers and other workers, as well as the causal
mechanism resulting in the differences of class identification.
The empirical results indicate that teachers should be categorized as professionals,
and the objective class position fits the “semi-autonomous employee” of Wright’s class
theory. Moreover, among all occupations, teachers have the highest scores on the
five-rank class identification and the highest percentage of the middle-class
identification. This fact also supports the status differentiation theory because
teachers’ cultural capital, including the years of schooling, refined cultural taste, and
participation in art activities, is higher than that of other workers. To the contrary, the
white-collar proletarianization theory has not get supported because there are only
15.9% teachers identifying themselves as working class. The percentage is only higher
than agricultural workers but much lower than blue-collar workers. Further, teachers
receive higher education and enjoy high work autonomy.
中小學教師屬於專業人員？半專業人員？或是非專業人員的白領勞工階級，
並認同於勞工階級？學界向來有所爭論而不甚清楚，並且相關量化的研究也很少
見。本研究以「臺灣地區社會變遷調查」的全國性大樣本資料做分析，探討中小
學教師的客觀階級位置、主觀階級認同與其他職業者的差異，以及造成階級認同
差異的因果機制。研究結果顯示：教師屬於專業人員，客觀階級位置符合 E. O.
Wright 階級理論中的「半自主性受僱者」；而教師的五等階級認同、中產階級認
同皆在所有職業中最高，主要原因在於教師的文化資本，這包括教育年數、精緻
文化品味、藝文活動參與都最高，地位分化理論得到支持。教師認同勞工階級的
比率（15.9%）在所有職業僅高於農林漁牧人員，而低於藍領工人許多，白領普羅
化理論得不到支持，主要原因在於教師的教育年數最高，工作自主性也很高。
