Traditionally, education has depended on the family and school (Prieto, 2008). In this article, the formative function of schools is analyzed through the figure of the teacher, as an essential part in the education of the student body. To this end, we first present the legislative and additional functions attributed to the teachers. This helps build clarity about the tasks assigned to teachers and what factors determine whether or not they can be carried out.

We then analyze the factors that have contributed to the deterioration of the teaching profession in the last decade. More specifically, teachers’ decision-making capacities have been gradually limited, by not consulting them when making far-reaching decisions affecting them and implementing such decisions. Currently, we are experiencing education policies that are committed to uniformity, standardization, and accountability, which are leading the teaching practice toward bureaucratization (Sanz Ponce et al., 2020), which is distant from the teacher’s passion for teaching (Day, 2006). These and other factors distort the functions of the teacher and the perception that the society has of them. According to Avalos et al. (2010), the ways in which teachers are perceived and valued socially influence the ways in which they see themselves and perform their role.

In this sense, the objective of this article is to present the perceptions that teachers have about their teaching work and the workload they assume. It is also intended to expose the perceptions they have about their consideration and social value. In short, the study this article reports aimed to analyze the situation that teachers are experiencing based on their perceptions. To this end, we consider their different professional experiences, analyzing the factors that are conditioning their teaching practice.

There is no doubt that the teacher is a fundamental part of the teaching–learning process that takes place in the classroom, having a significant impact on the quality of the educational system (Barber and Mourshed, 2008; Hattie, 2017; Sanz Ponce et al., 2020). In this regard, Avalos et al. (2010) stated that “the success of educational systems and student learning depends on the quality of teachers (…) and how this is combined with social expectations regarding their role” (p. 243). Likewise, Colomo and Aguilar (2019) recognized that teachers “have a responsibility and commitment to improve society” (p. 10). These same authors state that there is currently concern about the role of the teachers in the society and what skills they should have, taking into account our educational reality.

In recent decades, the demands of the teaching profession have been progressively increasing, including not only the mastery of new methodologies and the integration of new technological tools, but also attitudes and ethical commitments, the competence to create and sustain personalized learning relationships, willingness and skills to work in coordination with different professionals, resolve to fight against any inequality, and contributing to social justice (Escudero, 2011).

Today, a teacher is allocated and delegated functions that were previously only assigned to the family nucleus. They are entrusted with the tasks of educating, mediating in cases of conflict, and acting as a link between the family and center, instructor, etc. (Pérez and Rodríguez, 2013). In addition, they must carry out other tasks, such as the preparation of class material, undertaking professional training, innovation, coordination, work and involvement in the center, completing paperwork, etc. These tasks sometimes result in their not having sufficient time to reflect on their teaching practice and often generates discomfort in the assessment of the set of tasks they must perform and the need to redefine their teaching role (Guzmán and Javier, 2020; Merieu, 2020).

The conditions of the teaching practice have changed at a significant speed (see Figure 1); thus, teachers have had to adapt to the changes and continue to develop the functions assigned to them according to the legislation in force in each country. However, despite the effort that teachers make (resulting in overexertion on many occasions), a series of prejudices are created around them, meaning that they are not always valued as they should be by society (Vílchez and Fernando, 2019; Camacho, 2020).

García et al. (1991) enumerate a series of issues that have been generalized about the teaching practice and frequently detract from the teachers’ role. There is a growing tendency to generalize the defects or negative characteristics of some teachers to the rest of the teaching body, such as lack of punctuality, motivation, and training, disinterest, and apathy. In this sense, it should be noted that the figure of the teacher is usually questioned. This results in a negative external reputation due to a decrease in the level of trust toward their work, as well as a loss of respect and lack of consideration, which contribute to the creation of a tense atmosphere between the family and educational center, as teachers become scapegoats for the school’s failure. These aspects, along with others, such as the exhaustion and fatigue caused by professional overload, can lead to burnout syndrome, which is quite common among teachers.

Society currently demands “full professionalism from those who are dedicated to this activity” (Gonzalvez Perez, 2016, p. 199); that is, teachers are required to devote themselves to their profession without considering the emotional or affective aspects of it, or the (administrative) workload they face every day. Currently, we are facing a bureaucratized vision of the profession. In 2012, Bolívar remarked that “external changes and regulations (…) have led teaching practices (…) to increasingly bureaucratized tasks. In the same way, Hargreaves (2003), as cited in Tardif (2010) stated that the teaching field is becoming bureaucratized, subtracting time from the preparation of the teaching–learning process and reducing it to a mere execution of marked and predetermined tasks from higher bodies. In contrast, Perrenoud (2012) has stressed the idea that “the school was locked into uniformity” (p. 15), downplaying the role of teachers as drivers of change.

This discourse, however, is not new; almost three decades ago, Zurriaga Llorens (1993) pointed to bureaucratization as an overload of work imposed on the teacher that has a direct impact on the quality of teaching, given that more time is devoted to administrative tasks than to educational tasks. Several studies report (Hargreaves, 1992; Esteve, 2006; Lui and Ramsey, 2008) that teachers emphasize the lack of time to prepare for their classes, attend to their students, prepare materials, and undertake training due (in most cases) to the heavy administrative workload that they must face daily (Bolívar, 2012). This, along with other arguments, can be the cause of the demotivation, fatigue, and pessimism that some teachers experience.

Taking this into account, we can demonstrate that both external consideration and bureaucratization are aspects that can affect the adequate performance of the teaching role, and that these factors often go hand in hand. Day (2011) recognized that the erosion of teachers’ morale is associated with misconceptions about their role and the work overload that administrations and centers demand from them that results in less time to delve into their work and prepare for it.

Given this situation, Bolívar (2012) recognized that the best antidote to bureaucratization was teacher professionalization. For their part, Day (2011) stated that, for teachers to demonstrate commitment, they must be in “less alienating environments, with less bureaucratic management that is not only based on performative measures” (p. 219). In short, given the external consideration of their work and the overload of administrative burden that teachers face regularly, we must promote confidence in their functions, not increase their workload, resort to responsibility and conciliation in order to maintain a suitable atmosphere, provide them with tools to promote quality teaching, and offer them time for training and the preparation of tasks. In the words of Fullan (2002) and Hargreaves and Shirley (2012), we must allow teachers to become “agents of change” through training. Recent studies highlight the impact that both factors (external consideration and overload of administrative tasks) have on the teaching task (Avilés, 2019; Londoña Montoya et al., 2019; Moreno and Yreidys, 2019).

However, there is hardly any research that focuses on knowing how teachers currently live their profession, the social consideration they perceive of their work and the valuation they make of the administrative tasks they must perform. In short, the well-being of teachers in schools is a focus of interest for various international organizations, which have identified it as a priority for research (OECD, 2019, 2022). What do teachers think about this? How do they currently experience their profession and well-being? Do they perceive that their profession has undergone many changes? To answer these questions, teachers of different generations and at different levels of their profession (novice teachers, experts, and retirees from different educational stages) were interviewed to determine their perception, interpretation, and social consideration of their work, as well as the factors that are impacting their teaching practice.

This study is part of a broader project¹ that uses a mixed methodology (qualitative and quantitative methods; Portela et al., 2022). For that project, a multiphase design that covers two sequential studies was developed: the first focused on the generational diversity of teachers and the other on intergenerational collaboration among teachers. Both phases incorporate a quantitative and qualitative methodology, which are fundamental aspects in the context of this type of methodology (Creswell, 2015). The project has collected information from both focal groups and utilized semi-structured interviews (Patton, 2015; Stewart and Shamdasani, 2015).

For this article, the information extracted from the first sub-study dedicated to intergenerational diversity among teachers has been used, specifically the data from the interviews. For this reason, only qualitative data will be presented.

After the interviews were conducted and analyzed, several ideas were extracted about the teachers’ perception of the bureaucratization of their work and the external consideration that other agents outside the center (in this case, the families) have about their function.

As has been verified in previous sections, there is a relevant difference in terms of teachers with more experience and novices regarding both topics. More specifically, older and therefore more experienced teachers place more emphasis on the overload of work that they have assumed over the years, while younger teachers and those with less experience show little concern in this regard (Cortez et al., 2013). This may be due to the fact that, having recently started their professional career, they assume administrative functions as inherent to their role, without perceiving the differences that the profession has gradually been subjected to (Imbernón, 1994). Something similar occurs with the external consideration, as most experienced teachers express their concern about the external consideration that has been shaped around them (Díaz et al., 2010). However, both issues are currently latent and have been included in the discourse of the teachers interviewed.

The teaching staff has expressed a negative consideration toward both categories (bureaucratization and external consideration). Teachers with more experience recognize the change that the teaching practice has undergone because they have seen their workload, as well as its complexity and difficulty, increase over the years (Avilés, 2019; Sanz Ponce et al., 2020). In this sense, they consider that they must carry out their functions as teachers and also the extra tasks that have been imposed on them, tasks that are mostly of an administrative nature and which they must face on a day-to-day basis (Prieto, 2008). Thus, the teachers interviewed allude to the amount of bureaucratic work and action protocols that they adhere to systematically (Day, 2011; Londoña Montoya et al., 2019), which result in greater regulation and control by the administration and higher bodies, causing a certain reticence in the teachers (Sachs and Mockler, 2012).

The teachers interviewed also refer directly to the legislative and government changes that have been implemented in recent years, obviously affecting the educational practice. On the one hand, teachers consider that, despite all the legislative changes they have experienced, they have not perceived an improvement in the conditions of and for their teaching practice, nor a reduction of functions. On the contrary, each new change has resulted in an increase and/or overload of tasks (Bolívar, 2012; Guzmán and Javier, 2020). Likewise, they argue that there have been numerous reforms that, even before being reviewed and implemented, or before being put into practice, have been repealed and replaced by different ones (sometimes related to changes in the government). This is perceived by teachers as being detrimental to the performance of their duties because they must dedicate a large number of hours and great effort to adapt, modify, and renew their tasks based on the new legislative requirements. This takes up time that teachers feel could be dedicated to other aspects that are more related to their practice and that can directly benefit the teaching–learning process, such as innovation, training, the preparation of materials, classes, creativity, and teamwork (Hargreaves and Shirley, 2012).

On the other hand, the participants in this study consider that all these changes provoke in them a feeling of continuous vigilance (Bolívar, 2012; Guzmán Marín, 2018). Teachers feel pressured by the number of procedures and administrative tasks that they must carry out and the accountability they must exhibit before the governing bodies and the administration. This implies that teachers must spend more time solving problems and limiting their role to ensure adherence to protocols.

The increase in external regulation to which teachers have been subjected has resulted in a negative influence on their external consideration. Teachers recognize that the society has a negative view of their work without being aware of the large number of tasks they must carry out to perform their role (Day, 2011).

In short, the overload of administrative and management work faced by teachers when performing tasks that are sometimes more administrative than pedagogical, together with the prejudices that society has created around their work, have led to a decrease in their social consideration. Therefore, we can deduce that both factors are linked.

The data analyzed in this study is subject to the following licenses/restrictions: Not included to preserve the anonymity of the participants and their personal opinions. Requests to access these datasets should be directed to abraham.bernardez@um.es.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of Murcia. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

MP-C and MG-H: conceptualization. AT-S: methodology. MG-H and AT-S: software. AB-G, MG-H, and AT-S: formal analysis. MP-C, MG-H, and AT-S: investigation. AB-G, MG-H, and AT-S: data curation. MP-C, MG-H, AB-G, and AT-S: writing—original draft preparation and writing—review and editing. MG-H: supervision. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

The authors disclose receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of the article: this work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Innovation (Spain), AEI (Spain), and European Regional Development Fund (EU) [Project RTI2018-098806-B-I00].

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.