TEACHING FROM THE MARGINS: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY ON THE LIVED EXPERIENCES, CHALLENGES, AND COPING STRATEGIES OF TEACHERS IN REMOTE INDIGENOUS SCHOOLS

Education

This phenomenological research inquiries into the lived experiences, struggles, and strategies of adaptation of public-school teachers deployed to remote Indigenous schools in the Philippines. Situated within the triadic theoretical structure of Critical Pedagogy, Resilience Theory and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, the paper foregrounds data from in-depth interviews with ten targeted teachers posted in Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas (GIDAs). Data were collected through semi structured interviews, field notes and reflexive memoing, and analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s reflexive thematic analysis. The study results demonstrate a subtle interaction between systemic inattention, emotional strength, cultural mitigation, and spiritual conviction. Seven interlocking themes surfaced: epistemic translation in the face of language barriers; structural precarity and policy fatigue; embodied resilience and sustaining faith; community-anchored relational pedagogy; adaptive instructional improvisation; fragmented institutional support; and the ethic of care as a disposition. Teacher resilience is bolstered not only by personal tenacity but by social support structures, spiritual reaching for meaning, and ethical reciprocity from students. Amid the weight of bureaucratic performativity and material lack, these “teachers” embody a politicized ethic of care where teaching is rewritten as both resistance and vocation. The study makes an international contribution to equity, teacher agency and Indigenous education discussions, drawing a complex picture of pedagogical life at the margins, and contesting technocratic ways of framing teacher motivation and staying. It reinforces the case for reforms that go beyond performative representation to structural justice.

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