Abstract
Wellbeing in schools is often focused at the individual level, exploring students’ or teachers’ individual traits, habits, or actions that influence wellbeing. However, studies rarely take a whole-school approach that includes staff wellbeing, and frequently ignore relational and organizational level variables. We take a systems informed positive psychology approach and argue that it is essential to build greater understanding about organizational and relational influences on wellbeing in order for schools to support educator wellbeing. Our study evaluated the relative contributions of individual, relational, and organizational factors to educator wellbeing. Our measure of wellbeing focused on the life satisfaction and flourishing of 559 educators in 12 New Zealand schools. We used a social network analysis approach to capture educators’ relational ties, and demographic data and psychometric scales to capture individual and organizational level variables. Results of hierarchical blockwise regressions showed that individual, relational, and organizational factors were all significantly associated with educator wellbeing; however, it was educators’ perceptions of trusting and collaborative school conditions that were most strongly associated with their wellbeing. The number of relational ties educators had explained the least amount of variance in wellbeing. Educators were more likely to experience high levels of support when their close contacts also experienced high levels of support. However, for many educators, there was a negative association between their most frequent relational ties and their reported levels of support. Our results suggest that attending to the organizational factors that influence wellbeing, through creating trusting and collaborative school conditions, may be one of the most influential approaches to enhancing educator wellbeing. We call for whole-school approaches to wellbeing that not only consider how to support and enhance the wellbeing of school staff as well as students, but also view the conditions created within a school as a key driver of wellbeing within schools.
Highlights
IntroductionAn abundance of research shows that teachers suffer from high rates of stress and depression (Milfont et al, 2008; Yang et al, 2009; Kidger et al, 2010; Greenberg, 2016), and this has negative consequences for students’ academic achievement and wellbeing (Roffey, 2012; Hoglund et al, 2015)
Over the last 10 years, schools are increasingly adopting positive education approaches, yet teacher wellbeing is often neglected in the quest to improve student wellbeing, and positive education has been critiqued for a lack of studies into whole-school approaches to wellbeing that include the promotion of staff wellbeing (Waters and Loton, 2019)
The purpose of this study is to explore educator wellbeing through a positive psychology lens to uncover the factors that may positively influence educator wellbeing, rather than reducing educator stress
Summary
An abundance of research shows that teachers suffer from high rates of stress and depression (Milfont et al, 2008; Yang et al, 2009; Kidger et al, 2010; Greenberg, 2016), and this has negative consequences for students’ academic achievement and wellbeing (Roffey, 2012; Hoglund et al, 2015). Positive psychology looks beyond stress and depression (the negative end of the wellbeing spectrum) and seeks to “understand and build the factors that allow individuals, communities, and societies to flourish” This sentiment is taken up by the positive education movement, which applies ideas from positive psychology to the work of schools in improving students’ wellbeing alongside their academic outcomes. The purpose of this study is to explore educator wellbeing through a positive psychology lens to uncover the factors that may positively influence educator wellbeing, rather than reducing educator stress
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