Session Information
10 SES 01 B, Professional Learning and Reflection
Paper Session
Contribution
Research literature points out that difficulties in integrating career and family demands are some of the central stress factors in teachers’ lives around the world. The negative consequences of work-family conflict are numerous and influence teachers’ wellness in careers as well as in their private lives. In particular, it seems that pre-service teachers are not fully aware of this difficulty, rather quite the opposite, while studies describe one of the main motivations for choosing the teaching profession as the hope to reconcile private and professional lives. Due to the importance of the subject for the teachers’ well-being and considering the small number of studies focusing on this issue, the objective of the current paper is to investigate the pre-service teachers’ future perspectives and in-service teachers’ attitudes concerning the work-family relations.
Much of the research related to the work-family interface has focused on the conflict between work and family. Conflict is often conceptualized as role pressures from work and family that are mutually incompatible, such that participation in one role is made more difficult by virtue of participation in the other role (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). According to Frone (2003), the relevant terms are work to-family (WFC) and family-to-work conflict (FWC). Along with the difficulties arise from the integration between work and family life, research literature describes beneficial relationships between these two spheres (Greenhaus & Powell, 2006). Although there is less research on facilitation than conflict, research evidence indicates that WFF and FWF are two distinct constructs (Cinamon & Rich, 2010). Both forms of facilitation have been found to be related to a range of outcomes. In their conclusion of the review of the work and family relations in terms of conflict and facilitation, Whiston and Cinamon (2015) point out the lack of research data regarding the facilitation attitudes. These authors describe WFC as a prevalent issue in our society that is associated with family outcomes such as family distress, marital discord, and family dissatisfaction. The primary antecedents to WFC are in the work domain, and those with the largest correlations tend to be work stress and job demands. Furthermore, it appears that the most potent antecedents of FWC are family-related factors such as family stress and conflict. Both WFC and FWC are associated with numerous negative outcomes that affect individuals. WFC is related to an influence on family variables such as marital and family dissatisfaction (Carlson & Kacmar, 2000; Frone, Yardley & Markel, 1997). WFC also appears to influence factors in the work domain, given that WFC has been found to be negatively correlated with job satisfaction and work performance (Allen et al., 2000; Hoobler et al., 2010).
FWC has been found to be associated with work dissatisfaction and job malfunction, lower job performance and burnout (Carlson & Kacmar, 2000; Cinamon & Rich, 2010). Byron (2005) found that family stress, when compared with other family variables, had the largest correlational effect size with FWC. Spousal relations affected FWC as well; when spousal support decreased and criticism increased, FWC also increased (Grzywacz & Marks, 2000). FWC can also emerge from work-related demands (Whiston & Cinamon, 2015). Strain-related demands at work, which had a strong correlation with WFC, were found in even stronger correlation with FWC (Voydanoff, 2005). WFC among mother teachers is essential in their professional occupation, which is different from other occupations. Findings indicate that mother teachers feel that the conflict is expressed mainly in the measure of influence work has on their home more than the influence the home has on their work (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985).
Method
The research implies a sample of 728 pre-and in-service teachers in Israel and Switzerland. The Swiss sub-sample includes 389 participants of all disciplines (primary and secondary school) in the University of Teacher Education BEJUNE; the Israeli participants are 339 teachers of all disciplines in the Beit Berl College. The study aims at answering the following research question: Would there be any differences between Swiss and Israeli teachers regarding the anticipated WFC/FWC levels? Our hypotheses are the following: in-service teachers in both countries will demonstrate higher levels of WFC/FWC than pre-service teachers; women will express higher levels of anticipated WFF and FWF than men within the two countries; there will be differences between female and male pre-service teachers at the same stage of their studies regarding their levels of anticipated WFC/FWC and WFF/FWF within the two countries. A questionnaire has been administered in both countries to measure the teachers’ perceptions regarding work-family relations. It includes four parts. The first concerns respondents’ personal information (age, gender, marital status). The second part is adapted from the Life Roles Salience Scale (LRSS) measuring the attribution of importance to life roles. Originally it included 40 items: 5 items for each of the 8 dimensions of investigation (occupation role reward value, occupational role commitment, parental role reward value, parental role commitment, marital role reward value, marital role commitment, homecare role reward value, homecare role commitment). In the current research, we have decided not to include both of the homecare dimensions, because considered as irrelevant for our purposes. The third part is based on the questionnaire of Wayne, Musisca and Fleeson (2004) that includes 16 items: 4 items for each of the 4 dimensions investigated (WFC, FWC, WFF, FWF), based on a 5-level Likert scale. The fourth part included open questions regarding the perspectives the participants had about work-family integration while choosing the teaching career. The original LRSS and WF/FW/F/C questionnaires are in English. We used Hebrew versions of them for the Israeli sample and French versions for the Swiss sample. For the quantitative data, statistical tests have been performed to compare participants according to conflicts, facilitations, and attribution of importance to life roles. The qualitative data have been treated by a synoptic analysis (selection of specific sequences as examples of representations) and a “diagnostic” posture through which, by a contrastive approach, we identified the key-factors evoked by teachers through discursive indexes.
Expected Outcomes
The main results indicate that in-service teachers in the global sample of the two countries demonstrate significantly higher levels of work to family conflict in two of the items: “Stress at work makes you irritable at home” and “Your job makes you feel too tired to do the things that need attention at home.” Within the countries, we found that the Israeli in-service teachers demonstrate higher levels of WFC/FWC than the pre-service teachers. In Switzerland, there are no significant differences in WFC/FWC between in-service teachers and pre-service teachers. Comparing the Israeli pre-service teachers to the Swiss pre-services teachers, the Israeli pre-service teachers have significantly higher levels of FWC. Also, we found that all facilitation attitudes’ levels are significantly higher among the Israeli pre-service teachers than the Swiss pre-service teachers. The Israeli in-service teachers demonstrate significantly higher levels of general conflict relations and FWC than Swiss in-service teachers. All facilitation attitudes levels are significantly higher among the Israeli in-service teachers than the Swiss in-service teachers. Concerning the gender, women express more facilitation attitudes than men in the general sample of the two countries and express more facilitation and conflict attitudes than men at first year of studies in the general sample and within the Swiss group. In general, the levels of the Israeli sample regarding conflict, facilitation and importance attribution to life-roles are consistently higher than the levels in the Swiss sample. Results within the two countries are generally consistent with global research data regarding pre-service teachers’ expectations about future work-family life, only emphasizing the in-service conflictual perspectives. These findings invite us to reassure the need of addressing this aspect in teacher education programs and novice teachers’ supervision.
References
Allen, T. D., Herst, D. E. L., Bruck, C. S., & Sutton, M. (2000). Consequences associated with work-to-family conflict: A review and agenda for future research. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5, 278-308. Byron, K. (2005). A meta-analytic review of work-family conflict and its antecedents. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 67, 169-198. Carlson, D. S., & Kacmar, K. M. (2000). Work-family conflict in the organization: Do life role values make a difference? Journal of Management, 26, 1031-1054. Cinamon, R. G., & Rich, Y. (2010). Work family relations: Antecedents and outcomes. Journal of Career Assessment, 18, 59-70. Frone, M. R. (2003). Work-family balance. In J. C. Quick & L. E. Tetrick (Eds.), Handbook of occupational health psychology (pp. 143-162). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Frone, M. R., Yardley, J. K., & Markel, K. S. (1997). Developing and testing an integrative model of the work-family interface. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 50, 145-167. Greenhaus, J. H., & Beutell, N. J. (1985). Sources of conflict between work and family roles. The Academy of Management Review, 10, 76-88. Greenhaus, J. H., & Powell, G. N. (2006). When work and family are allies: A theory of work-family enrichment. Academy of Management Review, 31, 72-92. Grzywacz, J. G., & Marks, N. F. (2000). Family, work, work-family spillover and problem drinking in midlife. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 336-348. Hoobler, J. M., Hu, J., & Wilson, M. (2010). Do workers who experience conflict between the work and family domains hit a “glass ceiling?” A meta-analytic examination. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 77, 481-494. Voydanoff, P. (2005). The effects of community demands, resources, and strategies on the nature and consequences of the work-family interface: An agenda for future research. Family Relations, 54, 583-595. Wayne, J. H., Musisca, N., & Fleeson, W. (2004). Considering the role of personality in work-family experience: Relationships of the big five to work-family conflict and facilitation. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 64, 108-130. Whiston, S. C. & Cinamon, R. G. (2015). The work-family interface: Integrating research and career counseling practice. The Career Development Quarterly, 63, 44-56.
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