Hidden stories under the scaffold: The emotional labor of yayas of children with disabilities

Abstract

Beside the teachers and parents, there are other people who are much involved in the child care of learners with disabilities. These are the people who are hired or who are trusted to fulfill the roles of working parents. This study utilized narrative inquiry as a research methodology and approach, and purposively selected five yayas from one of the SPED schools in Iloilo City as participants for interview. After all needed information were gathered through interviews, the data were transcribed, and analyzed, resulting in the formulation of five narratives and one composite narrative capturing the roles of yayas in the learning of children with special needs, their scaffolding strategies, and challenges they encountered as they fulfilled their role. It was found out that based on the gathered and analyzed data, aside from the themes pertaining to the roles, scaffolding strategies and challenges of these yayas, there is an emotional labor. This research uncovered the emotional labor behind the roles, the scaffolds and experiences of these yayas. While the tangible aspect of the work of these yayas is to help the child with disability perform basic daily functions, their real and substantial work is actually the performance of various forms of emotional labor which are often unseen, and invisible, this is unrecognized and unrewarded.