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Article Excerpt
This paper presents the case study of a culturally diverse, inner suburban, primary school located on a government housing estate. We report on high levels of stress amongst the teachers at the school and find evidence of professional bureaucratic conflict. Two main findings are reported. First, that teacher stress is attributed to a combination of factors: the unique school characteristics which are not fully acknowledged by the governing bureaucracy; the ensuing professional-bureaucratic conflict resulting from a lack of acknowledgment and inadequate resourcing; and importantly, tensions relating to professional values and standards. Second, that stress can be somewhat ameliorated by the use of proactive teacher and whole-school responses, and that further reduction of stress requires a systemic response.
Keywords
teachers
social support
stress
workloads
coping
primary schools
Introduction
The subject of teacher stress has attracted considerable attention in both Australian (O'Connor & Clarke, 1990; Otto, 1986; Sarros & Sarros, 1992; Thomas, Clarke, & Lavery, 2003; Townsend, 1998) and international literature (Bartlett, 2004; Clark, 2002; Guglielmi & Tatrow, 1998; Kyriacou, 2001; Troman, 2000). This literature, however, clearly states the need for further research to explore the sources of teacher stress and the coping actions used by teachers and schools, and especially to disentangle 'the stress caused by difficult or excessive demands being made on a teacher, and stress being triggered by concerns linked to ones self-image' (Kyriacou, 2001). Based on current understanding of stress, including the contributions of Lazarus and Folkman (1984), this paper provides a greater insight into the complex relationship between sources of teacher stress and coping mechanisms. This paper also responds to Lazarus (2000), who calls for greater research that is 'focussed on observations that are day-to-day, microanalytical, and in-depth, and that are compatible with a holistic outlook'.
Research for this paper began as a collaborative project between the researchers and staff of an inner suburban primary school.
Two questions guide this research: first, what are the major issues associated with teacher stress and low morale at the school? And second, how does the school respond to these stressors?
Perspectives on stress and coping
In general, work stress can be defined as an adaptive response to a work situation that places special physical and/or psychological demands on a worker (Matteson & Ivancevich, 1987). The physical or psychological demands from the environment that cause stress are called stressors. The main generic stressors isolated in the broader management literature are role conflict, role ambiguity, work overload, task control or autonomy, career security and interpersonal relations (Jex, 1998; Kahn & Antonucci, 1980; Kahn & Byosiere, 1992; Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn & Snoek, 1964). Stress depends on the external environment and individual psychological and physiological factors (Lazarus, 1976). Stress can result in maladjusted behaviour, but sometimes also mobilises highly effective forms of adjustment. There are marked variations in perceptions of what is stressful and in personal or group responses to stress (Lazarus, 1966, 1976).
Lazarus and Folkman (1984, p. 141) define coping as 'constantly changing cognitive and behavioural efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of a person'. Coping specifically refers to what the person does to handle stressful or emotionally charged situations (Lazarus, 1966).
All coping can be divided into two main categories: direct actions or problem-focused coping are behaviours that prepare the person against harm, aggression, avoidance, inaction or apathy (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984); whereas palliative forms or emotion-focused coping reduce, eliminate or tolerate the stress (for example, using defence mechanisms such as identification, repression or denial).
Coping is partly determined by individual resources, such as health, social support and material resources. Coping is also determined by constraints that mitigate the use of resources, such as personal constraints, such as internalised cultural values and beliefs that proscribe certain ways of behaving, and environmental constraints, such as demands that compete for the same resources or intuitions that thwart effort.
Individual coping processes depend on the values, beliefs, and goals with which the individual constructs meaning (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Thus individual coping includes a reinterpretation of events in terms of benefits to one's values, beliefs and goals. This explanation of individual coping resonates with the concept of 'emotional intelligence' (Goleman, 1995), and consists of a person's ability to 'bounce back' from difficult and challenging situations (Clark, 2002). Resilience includes certain cognitive and emotional skills which enable positive or encouraging interpretations of challenging events.
Effective coping processes require congruence between coping and the demands of the situation and are subject to numerous variables. How to determine coping effectiveness remains one of the most perplexing research challenges (Folkman & Moskowitz, 2004).
Coping and the management of stress in an organisation are important because work stress has been related to worker physical and mental wellbeing, as well as organisational problems, such as decreased performance, increased accidents, absenteeism and turnover (Cropanzano, Rupp, & Byrne, 2003; Manning, Jackson & Fusilier, 1996). New developments in coping research include large-group or communal coping, which refers to coping responses that are influenced by and in reaction to the social context (Folkman & Moskowitz, 2004).
Teacher stress
Sources of teacher stress relate to work overload, insufficient time for work, student problems that are impossible to solve given available resources, and feelings of powerlessness in relation to the wider education system (Otto, 1986). Sarros and Sarros (1992) suggest there are many problems that 'are too large and complex for individual efforts'. Interpersonal relations are a source of stress for teachers, especially relations with other adults, such as colleagues, parents, management and departmental officials (Troman, 2000). Teaching is considered to be 'emotional work' (Troman, 2000), and virtually all in-depth studies of teaching indicate that it is 'difficult, complex and emotionally draining work entailing long out-of-classroom hours' (Bartlett, 2004).
There is increasing evidence of work intensification for teachers involving industry change and teachers' changing roles (Bartlett, 2004; Troman, 2000). The 1990s in Victoria saw the closure of a number of schools, the devolution of funding decisions to schools, changes to teaching and learning standards, such as the Curriculum Standards Framework (CSF), and increased bureaucratic pressures for higher professional standards (Caldwell & Hayward, 1998). Within this environment, the Victorian Department of Education developed an accountability framework with three key elements: a school charter, an annual report and a triennial school review. By 1999, however, a report released by the Victorian Auditor-General's Office suggested that the increased reporting requirements placed an additional burden on teachers and schools which warranted systemic support mechanism (Caldwell & Hayward, 1998; Caldwell & Spinks, 1998). These changes have added layers of complexity to the role of teachers, and increased their responsibilities and workloads (Townsend, 1998). Thus teachers' roles have changed from essentially a teaching/educational...
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