This proposal presents findings from my doctoral research on how Teacher Learning Communities (TLCs) can strengthen early childhood educators’ professional wellbeing and social-emotional learning (SEL) in demanding work contexts. The study is situated in early childhood education and care (ECEC) and examines TLCs as a collaborative, practice-based professional development model that responds to educators’ lived challenges while supporting sustainable professional growth.

The study is organised around three research questions:

1.     What barriers do ECEC educators experience that affect their professional wellbeing, and what coping strategies do they use?

2.     How can these barriers and coping strategies inform the design of a TLC that is responsive to educators’ needs?

3.     In what ways does participation in the TLC contribute to educators’ professional transformation in relation to wellbeing, SEL skills, and classroom practices?

The overall objective is to document (a) the structural, emotional, and interpersonal conditions shaping wellbeing, (b) educators’ adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies, and (c) how a TLCdesigned and implemented through a participatory, cyclical process can function as a supportive professional space that strengthens educators’ self-awareness, emotion regulation, and professional practices.

The study is grounded in the OECD Teacher Wellbeing Framework as an international lens for conceptualising educator wellbeing as holistic (mental, cognitive, physical, and social) and shaped by work resources such as working conditions, collegial support, relationships, and workload balance (Viac & Fraser, 2020).The framework also positions wellbeing as connected to professional capacity and recognition, and it supports analysing how workplace climate and relationships influence educators’ professional experiences (OECD, 2013; Viac & Fraser, 2020).

To conceptualise SEL beyond individual skills, the study draws on Transformative SEL, which emphasises holistic development alongside equity and justice, and highlights identity and agency as central to meaningful social-emotional development (Jagers et al., 2019). This framing enables connecting educator SEL (e.g., emotion awareness and regulation) with professional agency and broader ethical commitments in educational settings.

Finally, the study is informed by theories of teacher professional learning that conceptualise learning as situated and socially mediated, and that highlight the role of collaboration and school context in teacher learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Opfer & Pedder, 2011). TLCs are framed as a form of community-based professional learning aligned with communities-of-practice perspectives (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998), offering an organised structure for collective inquiry, reflection, and practice development. Together, these frameworks provide an international and theoretically coherent basis for examining educator wellbeing and SEL through collaborative professional learning structures.

ECEC educators across Europe and globally experience workload pressures, emotional demands, and status-related tensions, often alongside limited professional support structures. By using an international framework (OECD) and positioning TLCs as a scalable professional learning model, this study contributes to European and international debates on workforce sustainability, educator retention, and the integration of wellbeing into professional development systems. The proposal highlights how a TLC when designed around educators expressed needs and implemented through participatory cycles can offer a replicable pathway for strengthening professional wellbeing and SEL-oriented practice in diverse ECEC systems, including those facing similar structural constraints.

The study is guided by Participatory Action Research (PAR) and is organised around a needs-analysis phase followed by a Teacher Learning Community (TLC) phase. During the needs-analysis phase, informal visits were conducted in six municipal preschools, and individual and group interviews were carried out with 40 teachers to understand working conditions, school climate, and teachers’ needs and challenges relevant to wellbeing and social-emotional learning. An additional set of SEL-focused individual interviews was conducted to explore teachers’ self-awareness and self-management (emotion recognition and regulation) practices more directly. In the TLC phase, a volunteer group of six educators engaged in a sustained community process conducted through iterative Plan–Act–Observe–Reflect cycles central to PAR. The TLC was implemented through fourteen regular meetings over a year, which functioned as a platform for collaborative planning, reflection, and production of practice-oriented tools and strategies. Data were generated from multiple qualitative sources across the process (interviews, field-based notes/observations, meeting notes, reflective journals, and teacher-produced artefacts) and were analysed through iterative coding leading to thematic analysis. The participatory design prioritised educator inclusion and transparency throughout to reduce power imbalances.

The study shows that early childhood educators’ professional wellbeing is strongly shaped by school climate, with challenges clustered across structural, emotional, and interpersonal dimensions. Structural conditions (e.g., workload and working conditions) and interpersonal tensions (notably educator–parent dynamics and professional recognition) emerge as key sources of strain that influence educators’ day-to-day emotional experiences at work. In response, educators employ a range of coping strategies, conceptualised in the thesis as both adaptive and maladaptive patterns. A core conclusion is that a Teacher Learning Community (TLC), developed through a participatory and iterative process, can function as a supportive professional space where educators share experiences, make sense of challenges collectively, and develop practice-oriented responses. Teachers describe the TLC as enabling professional learning through reflection and collaboration, and report growth in self-awareness and emotion regulation, alongside strengthened professional practices connected to wellbeing and SEL. At the community level, the TLC demonstrates a trajectory of development across phases of initiation and exploration, empowerment and collaboration, and impact and outreach, indicating how collective capacity and professional belonging can build over time. In line with the OECD framing, the findings particularly underline the importance of the social dimension of teacher wellbeing relationships, belonging, and collegial support as a lever for sustaining wellbeing in ECEC contexts in Turkiye and internationally.

Jagers, R., Rivas‐Drake, D., & Williams, B. (2019). Transformative social and emotional learning (SEL): Toward sel in service of educational equity and excellence. Educational Psychologist, 54, 162 - 184. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2019.1623032. Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. OECD (2013). How’s life? 2013: Measuring wellbeing. OECD Publishing, Paris. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264201392-en Opfer, V. D. & Pedder, D. (2011). Conceptualizing teacher professional learning. Review of Educational Research, 81, 376-407. Viac, C., & Fraser, P. (2020). Teachers’ wellbeing: A framework for data collection and analysis. OECD Education Working Papers, No. 213, OECD Publishing, Paris. https://doi.org/10.1787/C36FC9D3-EN Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1017/CBO9780511803932