ANALYSIS OF DEMOGRAPHIC, PERCEPTUAL, AND WORK-RELATED FACTORS IN TEACHER MOONLIGHTING

The purpose of this study was to compare teachers who work part-time after regular school hours (moonlight) with teachers who do not work additional part-time jobs (nonmoonlighters). Two groups of teachers from a large urban school district were compared in terms of several demographic variables, their work-related attitudes and perceptions, and their reactions to conditions in their work environment. Fourteen variables, cited in an earlier investigation of teacher moonlighting (Carroll, Hall, & Pearson 1991), were used in a stepwise discriminant function to maximize discrimination between the two groups of teachers. The results indicate that teachers who moonlight and those who do not moonlight can be reliably distinguished by the pattern of their demographic characteristics and, to some degree, by their work-related perceptions. The results suggest that the act of moonlighting is not an expression of dissatisfaction with the teaching profession so much as it is an attempt to raise living standards.