O peso de estar em casa: uma análise acerca da percepção das profissionais docentes em relação a sobrecarga de trabalho no home office

Abstract

As of 2020, the world was surprised by a pandemic caused by the spread of the COVID-19 disease. As it is a new disease and there are still no drugs and proven effective prevention methods, social distance between individuals, isolation, and the withdrawal of families in their homes was necessary. This measure was initially understood as the most effective to contain the spread of the pandemic and prevent deaths. In this pandemic scenario, professionals had to adapt to the home office, organizing the home space to carry out work activities as well. Considering this context, this study focused on a specific audience of professionals, education professionals, more specifically female teachers, who worked and continue to work in a home office with remote teaching. The gender issue addressed is due to the fact that, historically, women are considered the main responsible for the organization and even the execution of domestic tasks. Therefore, the research problem we sought to answer is what is the perception of women teachers about work overload during home office work as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic? Aiming at a wider range of participants, a quantitative approach was chosen. This is a descriptive research, in the sense that it proposes to describe aspects related to a certain phenomenon, and also exploratory considering that the context of this pandemic has an unexplored particularity. The method used was Survey and the collection was through questionnaires electronics distributed through emails and social networks, whose target audience was women, teachers, from all levels of education, both in public and private, who work in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The results showed that women teachers indicate perception of work overload in the home office during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite some differences in perception according to the level of education in which they work, considering variables such as excessive noise during online classes; conflicts with parents, students or guardians, pressures at work and increased cognitive demands and memory use. Teachers who teach elementary school, from 6th to 9th grade perceive a greater workload than teachers who teach in higher education, although all indicate a perception of work overload.