Teachers' Work and Emotions

A Sociological Analysis

Kwok Kuen Tsang

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780429794230
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Educational Psychology

Being a teacher is often thought of as an emotionally fulfilling job, with many positive experiences in watching students grow and mature. However, as Tsang's research shows, there are plenty of negative emotional experiences in this line of work as well. Given the recent attention towards mental health and well-being, this book addresses these negative experiences and provides recommendations for dealing with them.

Focusing on teachers in Hong Kong, Tsang investigates the social mechanisms that arouse such negative emotional experiences, otherwise known as caam2. He asserts that these feelings are socially constructed, and it is only by understanding the causes and feelings can we begin to improve teachers' emotional well-being and teaching quality. Using a theoretical framework based on a critical review and synthesis of five existing perspectives, including labor process perspective, school administration perspective, emotional labor perspective, social interaction perspective, and teacher identity perspective, Tsang does precisely that, exploring the social process of these emotional experiences and the interplay between teacher agency and social structure. These findings go a long way in ameliorating teacher experiences all over the world.

1 Introduction

A need of sociological inquiry into teachers’ emotional experiences

Teaching is a stressful occupation in modern societies (Kokkinos, 2007), because it requires teachers to work with challenging students and parents (Chang, 2013; Prakke, van Peet, & van der Wolf, 2007) and implement multiple instructional, administrative, and pastoral duties with limited time and resources (Brante, 2009). It seems that the stressful conditions in teaching have been intensified since the implementations of education reforms in the 1980s (Day & Lee, 2011). In the past three decades, thus, we have witnessed that the population of unhappy teachers, who suffer from stress, exhaustion, frustration, depression, anxiety, and other negative emotions in teaching, is increasing all over the world. In the U.S., for example, over 60% of teachers’ enthusiasm in teaching is decreasing, but work stress and exhaustion is increasing (The American Federation of Teachers, 2015, 2017). In the U.K., 75% of teachers report that they have suffered from stress, depression, anxiety, and panic attacks (The Guardian, 2018) and 43% report that they plan to leave the teaching profession within five years because of the increasing work pressure (The Guardian, 2016). Similarly, research has shown that many teachers suffer from serious levels of stress, anxiety, and the sense of powerlessness in life (Howard & Johnson, 2004) resulting in a high teacher turnover rate in Australia (Schipp, 2017). Indeed, similar patterns of the emotional experiences in teaching are reported in other societies like Canada, Germany, Norway, New Zealand, Netherlands, Turkey, Spain, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Kenya, and India (Betoret, 2009; Bianchi, Schonfeld, Mayor, & Laurent, 2016; Bullard & Hosoda, 2015; Cheung & Hui, 2011; Danilewitz, 2017; Eres & Atanasoska, 2011; Ko, Chan, Lai, & Boey, 2000; Koros, Momanyi, & Chakua, 2018; McCarthy, Lambert, & Ullrich, 2012; Prakke et al., 2007; Shukla & Trivedi, 2008).

Since a chronic experience of the negative emotions may damage teachers’ mental and psychological well-being (Lee, Tsang, & Kwok, 2007) and the quality and effectiveness of teaching (Sutton, 2005), the increasing population of unhappy teachers on a global scale draws the attention of education researchers (Frenzel, 2014). In order to improve the well-being of teachers and/or the quality of teaching, the researchers have investigated how the negative emotional experiences of teachers are constructed. In the literature, the psychological perspectives, especially the theory of burnout, have dominated these investigations (Lau, Chan, Yuen, Myers, & Lee, 2008; Santoro, 2012).

Psychological perspective of teachers’ emotional experiences: theory of burnout

The psychological theory of burnout sets out to explain why some people are more prone to intense negative emotions or psychological symptoms than others in a similar and even the same working conditions. According to the theory, burnout is a psychological construct that describes employees’ negative emotional experiences in the workplace, such as the feelings of frustration, anxiety, exhaustion, and depression (Bakker, Schaufeli, Sixma, & Bosveld, 2001). In a general sense, burnout means the exhaustion of employees to maintain involvement in or commitment to work (Schaufeli & Leiter, 2009). More specifically, it consists of three dimensions, including emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a lack of accomplishment (Maslach, 1993). Emotional exhaustion refers to the feelings of being emotionally overextended and drained; depersonalization refers to the feelings of being cynical and detached from one’s work or other persons at work; the lack of accomplishment refers to the declined sense of competence, efficacy, and achievement (Maslach, 1993; Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001). Burnout has significant impacts on employees’ job performance and health. For example, Maslach et al. (2001) point out that burnout is associated with employees’ absenteeism, intention to leave the job, actual turnover, and low productivity. They also find that burnout is correlated positively to mental illness like neurasthenia. Moreover, psychologists have demonstrated that the chronic experience of stress is the most important cause of burnout and the relationship between stress and burnout may be mediated or moderated by a variety of personal and psychological variables, such as gender, age, coping strategies, emotional intelligence, job attitudes, and personality traits (Maslach, 1993; Maslach et al., 2001; Schaufeli & Leiter, 2009).

Since the topic of burnout is of significant importance to employees’ lives and job performance, education researchers have also applied the theory of burnout to investigate teachers’ emotional experiences in teaching (Chan, 2011). These studies have identified different independent variables of teacher burnout. First, the research has identified several stressors that cause teachers to burn out. For example, Tang and Yeung’s (1999) study identifies six stressors, including students’ misbehavior and undesirable attitudes, supervisors and inspectors, examination demand, non-teaching duties, workload, and lack of recognition for teaching and administrative tasks. In another study, Kokkinos (2007) indicates students’ behaviors, managing student misbehavior, relationships with colleagues, role ambiguity, poor working conditions, work overload, appraisal of teachers, time constraints, and specific teaching demands as the stressors. Similarly, Skaalvik and Skaalvik (2017) show that discipline problems of students, time pressure, low student motivation, and value dissonance are the stressors leading to teacher burnout.

In addition to the stressors, personality trait is a significant independent variable of teacher burnout (Kokkinos, 2007). Among the bid-five personality traits, for instance, studies have reported that neuroticism is a stronger predictor to burnout (Cano-García, Padilla-Muñoza, & Carrasco-Ortizb, 2005; Maslach et al., 2001; Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998). Furthermore, Chiu and Kosinski (1997) find that positive affectivity personality teachers are more able to cope with work stress and burnout, because teachers with this personality tended to focus on the positive side of the self, events, and environments. More recently, Chan (2011, 2013) has demonstrated that if teachers have personality traits like hardiness, gratitude, and forgiveness, it is easier for them to overcome stress and in turn have less burnout or better subjective well-being and mental health.

Coping strategies are also identified as an important variable predicting teacher burnout (Chan, 2007). As Yeung and Liu (2007) indicate, the burnt out teachers are generally those who lack effective strategies or skills to cope with stressful workplaces. According to S.A. Seidman and Zager (1991), effective coping strategies are the adaptive approach, such as hobbies, because they find that the adaptive strategies may reduce the level of teacher burnout. On the other hand, they find that maladaptive strategies such as excessive alcohol consumption may be associated with higher teacher burnout. In their study, moreover, Chan and Hui (1995) systematically examine the relationship between the three dimensions of burnout and different coping strategies among Hong Kong secondary schoolteachers. They find that the avoidant coping strategies are significantly and positively related to all dimensions of teacher burnout. That means that comparing with the teachers who positively and proactively face stressors, the teachers who avoid and escape to deal with stressors are more prone to burnout. In addition, other studies also indicate different types of coping strategies either positively or negatively associated with teacher stress and burnout (e.g., Austin, Shah, & Muncer, 2005; Griffith, Steptoe, & Cropley, 1999).

Furthermore, studies have indicated that teacher self-efficacy (e.g., Schwarzer & Hallum, 2008), emotion management (e.g., Iltaf & Gulzar, 2013), emotional intelligence (e.g., Chan, 2006), social support (e.g., Mo, 1991), resilience (e.g., Howard & Johnson, 2004), and demographic variables like age, gender, teaching experiences, and marital status (e.g., Lau, Yuen, & Chan, 2005) are factors significantly affecting, mediating, and/or moderating the level of teacher burnout.

Accordingly, the psychological studies successfully identify and explain some potential causes of teachers’ negative emotional experiences in teaching. The research findings also provide us insights to improve the teachers’ capacity to combat stress and burnout. For example, according to the research, we can improve teachers’ capability to cope with stress and burnout by providing training and intervention which aim at changing teachers’ personality, attitude, coping strategies, self-efficacy, emotion management, resilience, and/or emotional intelligence.

However, the major problem of these psychological studies is that they have neglected the structural causes of burnout. As Schwab (1983) notes, such a neglect may attribute all negative outcomes to individual teachers, making them solely responsible for burning out. Moreover, researchers have pointed out that burnout is not only caused by psycholo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of tables
• Acknowledgment
• 1 Introduction: a need of sociological inquiry into teachers’ emotional experiences
• 2 Sociological perspectives of teachers’ emotional experiences
• 3 Values and goals of teaching
• 4 Power and status, workload, and emotional experiences in teaching
• 5 School administrative system and emotional experiences in teaching
• 6 Structural education reforms and emotional experiences in teaching
• 7 Positive student-related matters and emotional experiences in teaching
• 8 Conclusion: teachers as disempowered moral agents
• References
• Index