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Pedagogical well‐being: reflectinglearning and well‐being in teachers’workTiina Soini a , Kirsi Pyhältö b & Janne Pietarinen ca Department of Teacher Education , University of Tampere ,Tampere, Finlandb Centre for Research and Development in Higher Education ,University of Helsinki , Helsinki, Finlandc Faculty of Education , University of Joensuu , Joensuu, FinlandPublished online: 11 Oct 2010.
To cite this article: Tiina Soini , Kirsi Pyhältö & Janne Pietarinen (2010) Pedagogical well‐being:reflecting learning and well‐being in teachers’ work, Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice,16:6, 735-751
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2010.517690
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Teachers and Teaching: theory and practiceVol. 16, No. 6, December 2010, 735–751
ISSN 1354-0602 print/ISSN 1470-1278 online© 2010 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/13540602.2010.517690http://www.informaworld.com
Pedagogical well-being: reflecting learning and well-being in teachers’ work
Tiina Soinia*, Kirsi Pyhältöb and Janne Pietarinenc
aDepartment of Teacher Education, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland; bCentre for Research and Development in Higher Education, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; cFaculty of Education, University of Joensuu, Joensuu, FinlandTaylor and FrancisCTAT_A_517690.sgm(Received 8 October 2008; final version received 22 January 2010)10.1080/13540602.2010.517690Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice1354-0602 (print)/1470-1278 (online)Original Article2010Taylor & Francis166000000December 2010Dr [email protected]
Teachers’ learning and occupational well-being is crucial in attaining educationalgoals both in the classroom and at the school community level. In this articleteachers’ occupational well-being that is constructed in teaching–learningprocesses within the school community is referred to as pedagogical well-being.The article focuses on exploring teachers’ experienced pedagogical well-being byexamining the kinds of situations that teachers themselves find either empoweringand engaging or burdening and stressful in their work. The study aims to: (1)identify the primary contexts of teachers’ experienced critical incidents ofpedagogical well-being; and (2) determine the kind of action strategies teachershave adopted in these contexts when they are reported as empowering andengaging. The study included data collected from the teachers of nine case-schoolsaround Finland. Altogether, a selected group of 68 comprehensive school teachers,including both primary and secondary school teachers, were interviewed. Ourresults suggested that interaction with pupils in socially and pedagogicallychallenging situations constitutes the core of teachers’ pedagogical well-being.Success in both the pedagogical goals and more general social goals seem to befundamental preconditions for teachers’ experienced pedagogical well-being.Further investigation showed that teachers’ approaches to socially challengingsituations varied. Results suggest that teachers’ pedagogical well-being iscentrally generated in the challenging social interactions of their work. Moreover,the way in which a teacher acts in the situation is found to be a regulator forexperienced pedagogical well-being.
Keywords: occupational well-being; learning; comprehensive school; teachers
1. Introduction
Teachers’ learning and occupational well-being is crucial in attaining educationalgoals both in the classroom and at the school community level. This means that teach-ers’ occupational well-being is closely entwined with the success of their pedagogicaltask, which in turn is linked to the ability of the teacher and the teacher community todevelop and revise their pedagogical actions. More specifically, skillful and motivatedteachers are likely to promote active and functional learning strategies, and conse-quently achieve the best learning outcome on pupils (Bolhuis & Voeten, 2004;Hoekstra, Beijaard, Brekelmans, & Korthagen, 2007; Hoy, Hoy, & Kurz, 2008). In
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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addition, empowered and engaged teachers are also more likely to implement peda-gogical innovations in their daily work. Research on teachers’ instructional practiceshave shown that teachers’ self-efficacy, emotional involvement, motivational struc-ture, and work engagement are interrelated and have an effect on the practices teachersadopt (Butler & Shibaz, 2008; Pelletier, Legault, & Séguin-Lévesque, 2002; Ryan,Gheen, & Midgley, 1998). This, in turn, affects the goals and strategies adopted by thepupils, such as help seeking. Yet, very little is known about how teachers themselvesperceive the main sources of inspiration and burden in their everyday work. In thisarticle, teachers’ occupational well-being that is constructed in teaching–learningprocesses within the school community is referred to as pedagogical well-being. Thearticle focuses on exploring teachers’ experienced pedagogical well-being in ninedifferent comprehensive schools in Finland.
1.1. Aim of the study
This study aims to gain better understanding of Finnish comprehensive school teach-ers’ pedagogical well-being by examining the kinds of situations that teachers them-selves find either empowering and engaging or burdening and stressful in their work.These situations are seen as critical incidents in which the constructed pedagogicalwell-being becomes observable. Teachers’ pedagogical well-being is empiricallyexamined in two complementary aspects: (1) identifying the primary contexts ofteachers’ experienced critical incidents of pedagogical well-being; and (2) determin-ing the kind of action strategies teachers have adopted in these contexts when they arereported as empowering and engaging.
1.2. The study context
This study is a part of a larger national research project: ‘Learning and developmentin comprehensive school’ (2004–2009), which focuses on undivided basic educationin Finland. The project aims to identify and understand preconditions for successfulschool reforms. Altogether 87 municipalities and 237 schools around Finland partici-pated in the first phase of the research project (2005–2007). The project was carriedout using a systemic design research approach (Brown, 1992; Collins, Joseph, &Bielaczyc, 2004; De Corte, 2000; Salomon, 1996). It included data collection from fourdifferent levels of the schooling system: (1) heads of school districts; (2) principals;(3) teachers; and (4) pupils (9th graders). To capture the views of different actors, thedata were collected through mixed methods such as inquiries, interviews, reflectivediscussion, and activating methods.
1.3. Learning of socio-psychological well-being in school
In addition to the intended learning outcomes, the pedagogical processes within schoolcommunities can generate either feelings of engagement and empowerment and a senseof satisfaction or feelings of stress and anxiety for the participants of the processes(Boekaerts, 1993; Konu, Lintonen, & Autio, 2002; Krapp, 2005; Pelletier et. al., 2002;Savolainen, 2001; Silins & Mulford, 2002; Tarter & Hoy, 2004; Van Houtte, 2006).Construction of socio-psychological well-being for members of the school communitycan be understood as a learning process that promotes relatedness, competence, and
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autonomy (e.g., Deci & Ryan, 2002; Hakanen, Bakker, & Schaufeli, 2005;Hakkarainen, Palonen, Paavola, & Lehtinen, 2004; Krapp, 2005; Lazarus & Lazarus,1994; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000; Sheldon & King, 2001). Learning of socio-psychological well-being within school can be seen as an active, collaborative, andsituated process in which the relationship between individuals and their environmentis constantly constructed and modified. In turn, well-being experienced by themembers of the school community regulates their learning in many ways, for example,it can affect the ability to concentrate and observe the environment, perceive affor-dances, and interpret received feedback (Antonovsky, 1987, 1993; Bowen, Richman,Brewster, & Bowen, 1998; Deci & Ryan, 2002; Kristersson & Öhlund, 2005; Morrison& Clift, 2005; Pallant & Lae, 2002; Ryan & Deci, 2001; Torsheim, Aarø, & Wold,2001). Hence, teachers’ sense of engagement and empowerment in their work areregulated by their experienced professional relationships (including relationships withpupils), belonging to the professional community, professional self-efficacy andperceived control and agency over one’s professional action.
The quality of pedagogical processes in school can be assessed by examining towhat extent they facilitate the preconditions for learning and well-being both for pupilsand teachers (Butler & Shibaz, 2008; Retelsdorf, Butler, Streblow, & Schiefele, 2010).However, well-being perceived by the members of a school community is often gener-ated as an unintended by-product of pedagogical processes and school practices. Asense of autonomy, relatedness, competence, and belonging or a lack of these elementsgenerated for teachers and pupils in the everyday interactions of school are herereferred to as pedagogical well-being. The construction of pedagogical well-beingcould be understood as a process of succeeding cycles of positive or negative learningexperiences leading to empowerment and engagement, or in severely negative cases,even to burnout. Accordingly, pedagogical well-being is constructed in the coreprocesses of teachers’ work that is, carrying out and developing teaching–learningprocess, including for example planning classroom activities, interacting with pupils,making evaluations, and choosing and developing instructional tools. The experiencedpedagogical well-being may either hinder or promote attainment of the pedagogicalgoals, and it therefore serves as a regulator for attaining learning outcomes.
1.4. Teachers’ pedagogical well-being
Pedagogical well-being is a part of teachers’ occupational well-being, along withother important elements, such as leadership in the school, continuity, work load, andresources (Meriläinen & Pietarinen, 2007; Rudow, 1999). The experienced pedagog-ical well-being may either promote or hinder the teacher’s occupational well-being. Ateacher may simultaneously experience empowerment, joy, and satisfaction in theirclassroom interactions with pupils along with feelings of anxiety and stress caused byproblems in collaborating with parents. In positive cases the pedagogical well-beinggenerated in the teacher community, for example, may function as a buffer against theburden caused by the unsolved problems that they face with parents. Accordingly,pedagogical well-being could be seen as a crucial asset of teachers’ work-relatedresilience (e.g., Masten & Reed, 2005). On the other hand in negative cases, the actionorientation and coping strategies adopted by the teachers, such as avoidance or defen-sive strategies, may gradually cause an inability to collaborate with parents that couldhave a severe negative impact on the pupil’s attitudes towards school as well as theteachers’ occupational well-being.
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Hence, the ways in which the teacher solves the problematic situation with hercolleagues, pupils or their parents are likely to affect not only the end result of the situ-ation, but also the feedback the teacher receives of themselves as a professional andhence one’s self-image as a teacher. This in turn further reflects on pedagogical prac-tices and strategies adopted by the teacher, thus resulting in either positive or negativecycles of experienced pedagogical well-being. Characteristic for the types of pedagog-ical interactions that promote teachers’ satisfaction, engagement, and empowermentare participants’ perceptions of themselves as active learners and their experience ofa sense of coherence, meaningfulness, and belonging (Antonovsky, 1987, 1993;Bowen et al., 1998; Deci & Ryan, 2002; Kristersson & Öhlund, 2005; Morrison & Clift,2005; Pallant & Lae, 2002; Ryan & Deci, 2001; Torsheim et al., 2001). In contrast,lack of professional efficacy, feelings of alienation, and inequality are all typical ofthe interactions that undermine the construction of pedagogical well-being. If theteacher, for example, is feeling emotionally overwhelmed and threatened by misbe-having pupils, she or he is more likely to adopt teacher centered and rigid problem-solving strategies than if she or he feels empowered in their work and appreciatedby the members of the school community. Respectively more flexible and reflectivestrategies may generate feelings of empowerment and support equal and reciprocalprofessional relationships with pupils and other teachers. These kinds of strategies andpractices can be learned.
1.5. Teachers’ pedagogical well-being is constructed in complementary contexts
Teachers’ pedagogical well-being is constructed in the interaction processes of aschool’s multilevel learning environment, not only with pupils but also with colleagues,families, and other members of the school community. In order to understand the gener-ation of teachers’ pedagogical well-being, some features of the school as a distinctivesocial, cultural, and psychological environment should be discussed.
Schools are complex contexts with multiple levels and practices, some of themcontradictory. There are opportunities for agency, avoidance, opposition, and resis-tance, and as a consequence there is inevitable tension in interactions between differentactors in the context (Lahelma, 2002). Teachers and pupils are the core of the schoolcommunity. However, teachers’ and pupils’ intentions, orientations, and perceptionstowards school activities have been found to differ fundamentally. For instance, teach-ers tend to perceive the classroom environment more positively and more favourablythan pupils do (e.g., Hofman, Hofman, & Guldemont, 2001). At the same time ateacher may be increasingly overwhelmed in pedagogical situations where their didac-tic intentions and subject-specific expertise do not provide them with functional toolsto cope with the social aims and challenges of school education. In teachers’ experi-ences, learning outcomes and the more general social goals of education may evenappear to be in conflict, and this constitutes a paradox to teachers’ pedagogical work.On the other hand, in pupils’ experiences the concentration on learning outcomes mayoverride the social aims of school education, for example, if a teacher ignores or doesnot recognize challenges such as bullying within the pupils’ peer group interaction.This may generate tension within the interaction of teachers and pupils and thus affecttheir experienced pedagogical well-being.
However, there is also an interrelation between teachers’ and pupils’ orientationstowards school work: for example, if a teacher perceives her work as primarily regu-lated by demands coming from different stakeholders outside the school community
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(such as politicians and school administrators), she or he is likely to use more externalcontrol and this results in more external strategies of learning for the pupils (Pelletieret al., 2002). It could be argued that a modern school is a context of continuing nego-tiations between pupils and teachers of authority and meaning-making and that boththe ambiance of the school community and the achievement of pedagogical goals areto a great extent dependent on the success of the negotiations between these actors(Gregory & Ripski, 2008; Schweinle et al., 2008; Van Petegem et al., 2006).
In addition to the pupil–teacher interaction in schools, interaction within the profes-sional community is another crucial element of the school as a social environment. Atits best, the teacher community provides not only emotional support but a collaborativeprofessional community that takes shared responsibility for pupils’ learning andgrowth as well as development of the whole school community. However, in practiceteachers often need to strike a balance between autonomy and external regulation. Theteacher community as a loosely coupled expert organization (Orton & Weick, 1990;Weick, 1979) enables and even facilitates autonomy but does not necessarily offer asense of belonging or encourage professional collaboration. Although, teachers arelearning to collaborate they are still accountable for their own subjects and classes andthey face this responsibility mostly individually and alone. This is reflected also in thesomewhat ambiguous role of teachers in school development: teachers are expected tobe active school developers and to be involved in implementing pedagogical reformsand facilitating collaboration between schools and at the level of local school district.However, according to the substantial research on school change, it seems that teachersare not highly committed to developing the school community outside their own class-rooms and content area; in fact, quite the opposite is true (Clement & Vandenberghe,2000; Fullan & Miles, 1992; Hargreaves, Lieberman, Fullan, & Hopkins, 1998;Sarasom, 1991; Stevens, 2004; Tyrack & Cuban, 1995). Accordingly, it seems thatteachers’ work is fragmented not only at an individual level, but also at a communitylevel. This means that teachers’ sense of coherence, professional efficacy, andmeaningfulness may also vary from one context to another; it may be high in one’sclassroom and at the same low in the teacher community. Hence, a teacher may at thesame time feel highly engaged and empowered in their pedagogical encounters withpupils and stressed by the implementation of the school reform.
Parents and families may constitute external pressure on teachers’ work which islinked to teachers’ occupational well-being and success in teaching. Professional self-efficacy is supported and anxiety decreased by good relations and interaction withparents (Betoret, 2006; Forsyth, Barnes, & Adams, 2006; Westergård, 2007).
To sum up, teachers’ work provides challenges but also opportunities for teachers’pedagogical well-being. There are elements that challenge teachers’ engagement andcommitment to the work, as well as resources for positive work drive and work satis-faction. In other words, teaching itself embodies the potential for a profession that issimultaneously highly inspiring and emotionally exhausting (Hakanen et al., 2005).
2. Study design
2.1. Participants
This study included data collected from the teachers of nine case-schools aroundFinland. The criteria for selecting the case-schools were variation and representative-ness of the sample. Primary, secondary, and grade one to nine comprehensive schools
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were included in the cases. The schools were of various sizes and phases in their undi-vided basic education development work, and they were situated throughout the wholecountry (Pyhältö, Pietarinen, Huusko, & Soini, 2005). Altogether, a selected group of68 comprehensive school teachers, including both primary and secondary schoolteachers, were interviewed (female: 42, male: 26, age: mean = 44.6, range = 31, min./max. = 30/61 years, std. deviation = 9250). The teachers were selected for interviewsbased on the open-ended responses to questionnaires collected previously from all thecase-school teachers. The criteria for selecting the teachers were variation in teachers’perceived professional orientation in terms of school development and their own rolein it, their educational background, gender, work history, and working experience.Hence, the sample was representative of teachers in case-schools. As required sincethe 1970s, all the participants held MA degrees in elementary education, secondarycontent areas, or special education, and were teaching in their area of certification.
2.2. Data collection
Teacher interviews were conducted in case-schools during spring 2006. The semi-structured theme interview embodied questions on two wide themes: (1) developingthe teaching profession; and (2) developing the school community (see the Appendix).The interview instrument aimed at gaining a wide view on teachers’ work, especiallyin the context of school reform. Experiences of burden and empowerment emerged inteachers’ reflections about their work. This study focuses on exploring those situationsteachers perceived as significant for their occupational well-being. All questions andinstructions were validated by the members of the research group before the inter-views. In total, the interview contained 27 questions on different aspects of teachers’work and three background questions on participants’ working history, years of teach-ing, and current responsibilities. The data were collected by the researchers duringtheir fieldwork on case-schools. Each interview took between 60 and 90 minutes tocomplete. The interviews were tape-recorded digitally and decoded into the text filesby two trained research assistants.
2.3. Analysis
The interviews were content analyzed using an abductive strategy. In the first phaseof the content analysis, all the text segments in which teachers referred to the criticalincidents of their learning of social–psychological well-being were coded into thesame hermeneutic category. After this, the category was coded into the two basic cate-gories using a grounded strategy. The categories resulting from the second phasewere: (A) empowerment and engagement; and (B) burden and stress. At the end ofthe first phase, both basic categories were classified into the three main categoriesthat constituted the primary context of pedagogical well-being: (1) teacher–pupilinteraction; (2) teacher community; and (3) teacher–parent interaction.
In the second phase of the content analysis, the focus was on analyzing actionstrategies reported to be used by the teachers in the primary contexts of pedagogicalwell-being. In line with the ideas of positive psychology we wanted to explore theresources and possibilities of teachers themselves in fostering their sense of auton-omy, relatedness, competence, and belonging in their work. Consequently, the textsegments in category (A) empowerment and engagement were coded into the foursub-categories according to:
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(1) holistic orientation, systemic and multifaceted perception of the situation;(2) emotional support, reflecting on the meaning of emotional aspects in problem-
solving strategies;(3) professional efficacy, utilizing professional competence in the situation; and(4) identification of object of activity, analyzing and elaborating on the situation.
These sub-categories were considered to constitute components of teachers’ actionstrategies in the primary contexts of pedagogical well-being. The content analysis wasconducted by using the ATLAS-ti program.
Categories resulting from the content analysis were validated by the researchgroup at the end of each analysis phase (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Yin, 1994). Theresearchers read the data carefully, constructed the categories and negotiated them indetail. In the few cases of disagreement, consensus of final categorization was reachedin a discussion between researchers. Moreover, the ecological validity of findings wastested and verified during visits on case-schools’ in-service training days whereresearchers and teachers reflected together on the results (e.g., Bryman, 2004;Creswell, 2003). The typical working method in these visits was a teachers’ small-group discussion facilitated by the researchers’ introduction to the results. Teachersverified the authenticity of the results and researchers’ conclusions.
3. Results
3.1. Primary contexts of teachers’ pedagogical well-being
Results suggested that the teachers’ experienced pedagogical well-being variedwidely, ranging from exhaustion to a positive work drive. Both satisfaction andengagement and burden and stress were reported by the teachers. However, more thanhalf of the descriptions (59%) related to experiences of empowerment and engage-ment. In general, it seems that teachers perceive social interactions as being both themost rewarding and the most problematic part of their work in several different levelsin their school community.
Further investigation showed that teachers’ pedagogical well-being wasconstructed in three primary contexts of their daily work. These primary contextswere: (1) the teacher–pupil interaction; (2) the peer interaction within the teachercommunity; and (3) the teacher–parent interaction.
Table 1 shows that teachers considered interaction with pupils a significantcontext for their experienced pedagogical well-being. Both empowering and stressfulevents described by the teachers related to socially challenging pedagogical situationswith pupils, such as dealing with bullying, loss of study motivation, or disturbingbehavior:
Table 1. Primary contexts of teachers’ experienced pedagogical well-being (frequencies).
Empowering and engagement (f) Burden and stress (f) Total (f)
Teacher–pupil 105 82 187Teacher community 107 41 148Teacher–parent 13 35 48Total (f) 225 158
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That you kind of have to get a hold of the pupil so that you make contact, some sort ofa contact with them, a ‘plus’ contact. If it’s negative, if you have to scold the kid andremind them all the time, and, well, scold them over and over again, that you’re lateagain, you haven’t done your homework again, then after all this negative scoldingyou’ve got to find that huge plus for them somewhere. And if you can’t find it, the kidwill just fade away … So that the kid won’t be left with a feeling that the teacher didn’tcare for them enough … Like when I think about my own situation, that have I just letit go too easily too many times, then yes, sometimes I feel like I have and it bothers me,but then I remember the supervisory aspect, that wait a second, it’s not like I’m supposedto be able to do everything.
During my last class I noticed that this girl who can’t, for example, do her reading taskat home, or she’s not supported at home, so in this job I’ve got to be a mother and a fatherto them and sometimes more. So, for example in this situation, she’d done her readingreally well. And I’ve been asking over and over that ‘did you do your reading task?’ Andyes, she’d done it, ‘I read it at home’. So she’s done it independently, with no support,and that’s a big step. I mean, a huge one for an under-achiever like her. So, we were readingaloud just now and I noticed immediately that she’d done her homework, all right, andsaid you can do it now. (T: Job well done.) Job well done, so I gave immediate feedbackto her, ‘xxx, you’ve, now listen the rest of you, you’ve really done this task so well, I candefinitely hear it’. Oh, the smile on her face and the good feeling, oh boy … So, maybethat’s the kind of a, kind of a little incident. That I try to notice every day (T: Right.)’cause then I feel I can cope with it better, when I, like, gather them up every day.
Teachers considered solving these problematic situations with their pupils as beinga core task of their work and at the same time a highly demanding task. This was alsoreflected in the emotional coloring of descriptions which ranged from joy and inspi-ration to disappointment and anxiety depending on the course of events.
Results indicated that teachers also considered professional peer interaction as animportant primary context in which their experienced pedagogical well-being wasconstructed. Teachers often emphasized the importance of good atmosphere and colle-gial support as a positive resource for their occupational well-being:
T: Where do you get support for your work at the moment? H: Well … Of courseit’s nice to have this great crowd around me, but … Now that we have these,yeah, these co-operative meetings of ours, Friday meetings and such, as we’vebeen able to have a say. They’ve brought us a sort of a foundation, that I reallyfeel like it’s a more intelligent contact. Like I can think about pedagogic issuesmore than before, more in that way, that I actually bother to think about them.And then you can talk about them with someone. ‘Cause, this like, this is like astarting point, we have all these staff rooms where you run around and do allyour work and others do the same, and you just about get your own stuff done.But these pedagogic issues are such that you should … should get to talk about,discuss, ponder with adults.
On the other hand, a poor atmosphere, destructive frictions within the community,and a lack of leadership were reported to be burdensome and a cause for anxiety andstress. However, the professional community was more often perceived as a resourcefor positive work drive than as a cause for burden and stress.
As Table 1 shows that teachers also described teacher–parent interaction as theprimary context of pedagogical well-being. Teachers did not perceive encounters withparents as significant as interactions with pupils and peers in terms of their experi-enced pedagogical well-being, though functional collaboration with parents wasrecognized as a regulator for successful studying. Teachers experienced collaboration
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with parents as a positive resource for their work when parents shared and supportedpupils’ efforts for attaining learning goals:
These so called parents who just don’t know what they’re doing … I mean, I feel it’s,it’s very unfortunate. And I, for one, have been, am, I mean it really hurts me and it makesme stay up all night, these parents, parents who don’t know what they’re doing. And thenthese kids who no one cares for. That’s what’s a real challenge, what’s making me wondermore all the time. (T: So there are more of these children in each age group?) Yes, yes.So if a kid says we don’t have any food in the fridge, like one of them did this morning.I just send them in the kitchen to eat … just go and ask for a sandwich.
In turn, if parents were not interested in their child’s education or questioned theteacher’s pedagogical efforts and authority the situation was considered problematicand burdensome by the teachers.
3.2. Teachers’ action in socially challenging situations
Results showed that teachers’ action in socially challenging situations varied. Bothteachers’ perceptions about the situations and their own role in it varied according tothe primary context of pedagogical well-being (see Figure 1). In general teachers whoexperienced positive work drive and empowerment in their work reported usingactive, reflective, holistic, and collaborative problem-solving strategies.Figure 1. Components of teachers’ strategies in primary contexts of pedagogical well-being (frequencies).Figure 1 shows how the components of teachers’ strategies varied in the primarycontexts of pedagogical well-being. Teachers reported using multifaceted and activestrategies to solve problems both in teacher–pupil and teacher–parent interactions.They described using holistic orientation and attempting to identify and specify theobject of activity. Teachers also described the diversity of opportunities for professionaldevelopment and experiences of efficacy provided by the teacher–pupil interactions.
Figure 1. Components of teachers’ strategies in primary contexts of pedagogical well-being(frequencies).
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In fact, teachers often perceived new insight or better understanding gained in the chal-lenging situation with pupils as a cause of experienced empowerment and engagement.Results also indicated that offering emotional support for the pupils was a key elementof pedagogical well-being in teacher–pupil and also teacher–parent contexts:
It’s, well if I think of it now, it’s those times when a pupil comes to you to tell about theirproblems, things that are really difficult for them (R: Yep.) so you have to have time forthem. It’s not like you can tell them you’re sorry and that you actually should be incharge of monitoring the break or that you have this and that going on, so come backtomorrow. It may be that it’s the last time they ever try to talk to you. (R: I bet.) So youneed to be like sensitive to these situations, be there when the kid comes to you and sayshis or her father didn’t come and pick them up although it was their turn. Or something.You just have to be like, alert, present.
There are always some problematic pupils. So, how they’re treated, that’s the question.And if a pupil misbehaves, there’s always something that causes it, you should actuallyknow the background, the reasons. It’s not like we accept bad behaviour, that’s a definite‘no’. The pupil just needs to understand this. But it’s not just that the pupil wants to bebad, it’s what’s in the background that causes it, that they feel bad.
I had to go to xxx elementary school, so the name of the school was then xxx second-ary school, and they have a completely different set of pupils there than we have here,so it’s like they come from a different social environment, those children. So, I hadsome difficulties there, I felt like I was mentally ill myself and had a rash and allergyand all that, so it was really hard … mentally, until I realised that it’s just their anxietythey’re shouting out, the children, and that although they were so rude and nasty whenthey knew I was only going to be there for a short time, I was there for just – was itonce a week or sometimes a day and a half at the most? – so I was a sort of a visitorthere, a stranger, so it was easy to be horrible towards me, so that’s when I learned,through experience that if I never see that pupil as an entity, a person, and try to helphim, it’s going to be so horrible to do my job for the rest of my life. So, er, so that’swhen I sort of got that, the impression that I need to look at the student straight inthe eyes, feel their essence and figure out what’s happening, only then would I be ableto help them and only then would they understand what I’m saying, and be on thesame page.
So, this prolonged [bullying] process just dissolved last week, it was really that we …that it’s been going on for so long and for the whole time we didn’t quite know who didwhat, so this is, like, the time to speak our minds now. So firstly, er, I can’t keep dwellingon this for the whole spring, and we have these parents dwelling on this every now andthen, they phone each other and it all gets reflected on you, so you’re feeling good aboutit and bad with all this and, and always a bit in a bad mood, feeling bad about this, likenow is the time to talk this through and then, like, well, like still those words just won’tcome out and so I thought that if you can’t say it, at least write it down. So, that was it,and that’s where I found the core of the problem this time.
Characteristic of teachers’ descriptions of empowerment in peer interaction wasthe gaining of emotional support from colleagues. Teachers also emphasized theimportance of sharing their work and using their peers as a reflective mirror for theirwork. Consequently, reflection was emphasized as the main element of action strategyteachers reported using with peers. However, teachers used reflection as a tool foraffirming themselves about their interpretations of challenging situations and theirdecisions and choice of action strategies with pupils in the class. Furthermore, teach-ers seldom reported using holistic orientation in the context of the teacher communityor attempts to collegially identify and analyze the problem at hand. Descriptions of
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opportunities for professional development and efficacy were also infrequent. In sum,teachers preferred a less active and learning-oriented problem-solving approachwithin the teacher community than in the context of teacher–pupil interaction:
And this community I work in is this size and people always think a bit different fromthe next guy, so. I sometimes fear that the problem [a socially challenging situation]could just spread around and reach those it doesn’t concern. Like I’m trying to limit thesethings, include only those who it concerns. I’m working with the counsellor who is likethe most important person to me at work. (R: Right.) So, he’s been working here sincethe 1980s and is a sort of a calm, relaxed man with a good outlook, so he’s, again, aperson I can work with and get support from. I can, in a way, test things, ask what he’dthink, if this makes sense and so on.
But this democracy, it really works here [in the teacher community]. The leadership isnowadays such that, that it’s like … it’s like, well, just, there’s equality shown towardsus, so we have this very … We have this equality and everyone gets … the tasks getdistributed quite equally and … and if need be, heads will roll, though there hasn’t beenneed really. But let’s put it like this … it’s not like, it’s like this sort of, sort of a prettygood feeling there, so … It’s not like we wouldn’t argue should we feel like it, but wehaven’t lately.
I [the principal] always tell the teachers that we should always try to avoid any situationin which there could be any conflicts between the pupil and the teacher, they can go onfor so long that they disturb teaching the pupil and your work. So if a situation gets reallybad, we have this procedure, for example, that we don’t automatically give it, likeremove from classroom and give detention. Of course it’s easier for the teacher to dealwith the situation and set it aside. But if it was then done so that the pupil comesafterwards, when he/she comes after the class, you’d talk with them. Both would telltheir side of the story and you’d discuss with the pupil. If you’d still after this feel thatyou need to give detention, then you give detention. The pupil will probably accept itthen, too, and feel, and find it justified.
Moreover, only a few teachers described empowerment and engagement in theparent–teacher interaction. Therefore, the strategies adopted by the teachers in theteacher–parent interaction were not often reported. However, those teachers who didreport a strategy usually assumed a diverse and active approach to problem-solvingpupils’ problems with parents.
3.3. Conclusion
The results demonstrated that teachers’ experienced pedagogical well-being variedwidely, ranging from burdensome to empowering. More than half of the descriptionswere related to the experiences of empowerment and engagement. In general, teach-ers’ experienced pedagogical well-being was situated in the everyday interactions oftheir work: (1) the teacher–pupil interaction; (2) the peer interaction with colleagues;and (3) the teacher–parent interaction. Further investigation showed that teachers’approaches on socially challenging situations also varied. Teachers’ most often usedactive, holistic and multifaceted strategies to solve problematic situations with pupils.In contrast, a more passive approach was adopted in problem-solving with colleagues.Strategies adopted by teachers to solve problems with parents are less well understoodas these were seldom reported.
To sum up, results suggest that teachers’ pedagogical well-being is centrallygenerated in the challenging social interactions of their work. Moreover, the way in
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which a teacher acts in the situation is found to be a regulator for experiencedpedagogical well-being.
3.4. Methodological reflections
There were some methodological limitations in the study. Although our qualitativeinquiries related to teachers’ work in the context of school reform appeared to be quiteextensive (see also Creswell, 2003), in future studies a methodological challengewould be to capture a richer understanding about the process in which teacher’spedagogical well-being is constructed.
To our knowledge, there are few previous studies that have looked at such phenom-ena in this way. Therefore, a qualitative approach along with an abductive strategywithin a semi-structured theme interview was chosen to explore the phenomena.However, further studies combining both qualitative and quantitative methods areneeded to capture a more specific understanding about the process of teachers’ empow-erment or burdening in the complementary contexts of school. Hence, using a mixedmethods approach (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2003) would make it possible to explore inmore detail the processes and regulators for teachers’ pedagogical well-being.
4. Discussion
4.1. Reflections on results
Our results suggest that interaction with pupils in socially and pedagogically challeng-ing situations constitutes the core of teachers’ pedagogical well-being. Success in boththe pedagogical goals and more general social goals seem to be fundamental precon-ditions for teachers’ experienced pedagogical well-being in this context. It seems thatteachers’ experienced pedagogical well-being is regulated by the quality of interactionwith pupils, as perceived by the teachers. It could be argued that the more rich andvariable the teacher’s strategy in the challenging situation with the pupil was, the morethe experience supported the teacher’s perceived empowerment and engagement,hence constructing the pedagogical well-being.
Our results also suggest that in addition to teacher–pupil interactions, the teachercommunity plays an important part in teachers’ occupational well-being. Aspects suchas the emotional support gained from the teacher community and a positive atmospherewere especially emphasized by the teachers in our study. They rarely referred to theteacher community as a source of stress and burden. A reason for this may be that theoverall atmosphere of teacher communities in our case-schools is positive and collab-orative. Problematically, previous studies on school development suggest that methodsfor attaining functional teacher collaboration are not self-evident (Bakkenes, DeBarbander, & Imants, 1999; Clement & Vandenberghe, 2000; Fullan, 1995; Sleegers,van den Berg, & Geisel, 2000). Accordingly, another less obvious interpretation of theresult may be that the teacher community provides emotional support that generates afunctional buffer against the negative and burdensome experiences with pupils (e.g.,conflicts in the class) (Zapf, 2002). The significance of this buffer for a teacher is likelyto increase if one experiences difficulties in teacher–pupil interaction. In turn, if ateacher succeeds in their pedagogical work with pupils (which was perceived as themost important primary context of pedagogical well-being), the significance of theteacher community as a source of burden may be perceived as modest, although
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destructive frictions may occur with colleagues. The hypothesis is supported by thefinding that teacher’s use less active strategies to solve the problematic situationswithin their teacher community. This also suggests that though teachers do recognizethe importance of collegial support for their pedagogical well-being, they do not gener-ally consider themselves to be active professional agents in constructing pedagogicalwell-being in the context of the teacher community (see also Pyhältö, Pietarinen, Soini,& Huusko, 2008).
Our results seem to say that teachers do not typically perceive themselves as activecollaborative learners within the teacher community. This may be caused by a lack ofskills related to relational aspects of professional agency, such as offering and receivingpeer feedback. Then again, the somewhat passive role of the teacher community in thegeneration of pedagogical well-being could also result from features of the schoolculture that do not facilitate collaboration in facing challenging pedagogical matters.However, it must also be kept in mind that the variety of strategies reported by the teach-ers across primary contexts indicates a strong context dependency for the assumed strat-egy. These contexts in which pedagogical well-being is being generated may also offervarious possibilities for action and for developing a sense of agency among teachers.
4.2. Implications on school development
In our analysis, we focused on elaborating the successful strategies of teachers andhence took the positive resource approach to teachers’ occupational well-being andthe school development work. We argue that this is a relevant approach, since inschool reforms teachers may appear to be obstacles to the development, when in fact,they are and should be the main resource. Development and reforms should take thecore of teachers’ work, with interaction with pupils as a starting point. The signifi-cance of the teacher–pupil interaction may provide new insights into both developingthe school and education and supporting teachers’ pedagogical well-being at work.From this perspective, for example, collaborative investment in developing teacher–pupil interactions within the school community should not only be about developinglearning environments for pupils, but it should also include ways to promote teachers’pedagogical well-being. According to our results this means finding varying, active,and many-sided ways to deal with challenges at hand. And this, in turn, requires moresupport for teachers’ learning in work.
In terms of developing school communities as learning environments for teachers,more engaging and more empowering conditions for pedagogical work in schoolsshould be created. For example, teachers should be encouraged to analyze and concep-tualize challenging situations instead of just trying to solve them. This could providethem with more elaborated view on the problem, help them to ask right questions andconsequently support their self-efficacy in work. The results suggest that there lies anunutilized resource of development in teachers’ collaborative strategies of analyzingtheir work. It could be argued that more analytic strategies incorporated with thepossibility and ability to use the social resources of the school environment can alsoprotect teachers from experiencing burden and stress. One example would be thatteachers may benefit from reflecting together on the strategies they adopt, and on howand why the strategies vary in different sub-contexts within the school community.Moreover, to promote teachers’ experienced empowerment and satisfaction in theirwork, their sense of active agency outside their own classes and subjects should alsobe facilitated.
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In summary, we argue that the concept of pedagogical well-being offers a tool forreflecting on teachers’ occupational well-being by emphasizing the pedagogical core ofteachers’ work, the entwined relationship between learning and well-being, and theresources teachers have and can use in solving challenging situations in their work.Moreover, it appears that the primary context of teachers’ pedagogical well-beingprovides challenges, but it also provides a positive resource for generating teachers’empowerment and work drive. This is, however, dependent on whether the concept ofteachers as a community of learners and the school as a learning environment for teach-ers as well as students is seriously considered as a premise for school development.
AcknowledgmentsWe wish to thank Annabel Battersby-Järvinen for the language revision. We also wish to thankthe Finnish Ministry of Education and Finnish Work Environment Fund for funding theresearch project Learning and Development in Comprehensive School.
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Appendix. Teacher’s Professional Landscape Inventory (TPLI) in the context of school development
Biographical information and professional orientation:
1.1 Describe your educational background and working history.1.2 Do you have any special assignments or duties as a teacher? How do these duties
affect your work?1.3 What made you want to become a teacher?
Theme 1. Developing teaching profession
(1) What is the core of your work as ateacher? Why?
(2) Describe your strengths as a teacher;what do you do well or are good at inyour work in school’s everyday life?
(3) Have your perceptions about teachers’work changed during your professionalcareer? Describe the changes.
(4) When you think of your career can youdescribe a situation that has stronglyaffected on your thoughts about yourwork or some work-related matter? Whathappened? Why? What did you think andhow did you feel in this situation?
(5) Are there work-related challenges, ques-tions, or things that bother you at thismoment? What kind of challenges arethese and why are these significant?
(6) Do you get support in your work at themoment? How are you supported? Whatis the support like? Would you needmore support for your work?
(7) How do you perceive your work in thefuture – in five years time?
(8) In your opinion, what direction is the Finn-ish comprehensive school developing?
(9) In what way, if any, has the developmentof undivided basic education affectedyour work?
(10) Do you think that it (UBE) shouldhave an effect on your work? In whatway?
Theme 2. Developing school community(1) What kind of a working environment is
this school? Do you like to work here?(2) How would you describe the teacher
community in this school?(3) Has this school changed during your
professional career in this school? How?What things or circumstances havecontributed the change?
(4) How does this school change and develop?How are plans made and things decided?What things are discussed in the teachers’room? Is there collaboration? Can youdisagree with your collegues? etc.
(5) How do you think your school should bedeveloped in the future?
(6) How should the development in school becarried out (implemented)? What kind ofinstruments should be used?
(7) Has the development of undivided basiceducation effected (positively or nega-tively) on school’s everyday life? How?
(8) What have been the critical phases in devel-oping undivided basic education? Why?
(9) Which things or circumstances havepromoted your school development?Which things have challenged yourschool development?
(10) How you would describe your schoolfrom the pupils’ perspective?
(11) How would you define a pupil’s role inyour school?
(12) When you imagine pupils recalling theirschool memories, what would you hopefor them to remember from this school?
(13) In your opinion what should pupils beable to master when they graduate fromthis school?
(14) Could you describe the case/an exampleof a successful interaction situationbetween teacher(s) and pupils? Whathappened? What makes these kind ofsituations possible?
(15) Teacher faces many challenging/prob-lematic situations in his/her work. Please,describe some typical situations anddescribe how you are trying to solve thesesituations.
(16) What does the latest school reform,developing undivided basic education,mean to you?
(17) How do you perceive your own roleto promote pupils’ learning and develop-ment?
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