A Precarização do trabalho docente no ensino de idiomas: plataformização, uberização e autonomia no mercado digital

Abstract

This dissertation examines the precarization of teaching labor in language education, analyzing the impacts of platformization and uberization within the digital economy. Using a qualitative approach, including interviews with instructors working on online platforms, the study reveals how neoliberal capitalist transformations reshape labor relations, replacing formal contracts with algorithmically controlled, intermittent work marked by self-exploitation. Findings demonstrate that the purported flexibility of platforms conceals intensified workloads, loss of pedagogical autonomy, and the commodification of education, reducing teachers to "products" evaluated through performance metrics. The research also highlights global disparities, with educators from peripheral nations facing exploitative wages due to international competition. Despite this scenario, teachers develop resistance strategies ranging from individual entrepreneurship to solidarity networks. However, critical analysis indicates these measures remain insufficient without labor regulations and collective action. Positioning himself as both researcher and platform-based instructor, the author argues that overcoming precarity requires not just academic critique but political engagement.