Teacher Stress - Meeting (new) challenges in the emerging German inclusive schools

Author(s):

Eva-Maria Bennemann(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2015

Network:

Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES H 14, Teachers and Education

Paper Session

Time:

2015-09-08

11:00-12:30

Room:

393. [Main]

Chair:

Iryna Kushnir

Contribution

The PISA report 2000 found a strong relationship between social background and school performance in Germany – the strongest among the contestant countries. This led to many reform activities in the education system by national and federal governments to promote equal opportunities. After a historic change of government in the federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg in 2011 the new coalition between the green and the social democratic party introduced inclusive schools as a new school type following the example of more successful European school systems. The main feature of these all-day schools is an individualized education to cater for students with different ability levels.

With the development of the new school type and the increased heterogeneity of the student body there came new challenges for the teaching staff. Reports of teachers and newest studies raise the question if the reform increased the workload for educators and they also indicate that the situation could be more critical than in other school types.

The study presented here wants to give a differentiated view of the stress situation of teachers in the inclusive schools of Baden-Wuerttemberg, to give hints to improve their situation and to find out what it needs to better qualify the teachers for their work in inclusive schools. In order to encompass the stress situation, a stress model has been developed based on the model of salutogenesis by Antonovsky, the stress-strain model of Rudow and the model of teacher stress by Kyriacou and Sutcliffe.

Method

The research design includes qualitative and quantitative methods to reach a comprehensive understanding and to compensate for disadvantages of each method. The collecting of data takes place in ten inclusive schools in the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. Using guided interviews with teachers and school principals as the main source, this research will also use data gained by participating observation of lessons and other school activities as well as meetings of the staff and discussions. The qualitative compilation of information is complemented by a quantitative written survey. Depending on the type of data it will be either analyzed statistically or following the content analysis of Mayring and will later be triangulated.

Expected Outcomes

The paper presentation will focus on the research design of the study described above which is part of a doctoral thesis that is currently in the first phase of qualitative data collection. Therefore no conclusions are possible at the moment but it is expected that an intensified school development work and the challenge to provide individualized education to a highly heterogeneous student body leads to new tasks and a higher workload.

References

Antonovsky, Aaron (1979): Health, stress and coping. New perspectives on mental and physical well-being. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Antonovsky, Aaron (1997): Salutogenese. Zur Entmystifizierung der Gesundheit. Deutsche erweiterte Ausgabe: Franke, Alexa. Tübingen: dgvt. Kyriacou, Chris; Sutcliffe, John (1978): A Model of Teacher Stress. Educational Studies 4. 1, S. 1-6. Lazarus, Richard S.; Folkman, Susan (1987): Transactional Theory and Research on Emotions and Coping. In: European Journal of Personality. 1, S. 141-169. Rudow, Bernd (1995): Die Arbeit des Lehrers. Zur Psychologie der Lehrertätigkeit, Lehrerbelastung und Lehrergesundheit. Bern: Huber. Rudow, Bernd (2011): Die gesunde Arbeit. Arbeitsgestaltung, Arbeitsorganisation und Personalführung. München: Oldenbourg.

Author Information

Eva-Maria Bennemann (presenting / submitting)

University of Education Freiburg

Institute of Educational Sciences

Freiburg im Breisgau

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