A conceptual model for teacher wellbeing: towards a holistic understanding

Abstract

There is a rising crisis in respect to teacher wellbeing, with emerging international literature indicating high levels of work-related stress, anxiety and/or depression, cited alongside an increasing exodus of teachers from the workforce. Within this available literature, teacher wellbeing terms are typically collated under frameworks of poor mental health or otherwise ‘deficit-based’ definitions of wellbeing (i.e. teachers showing an excess of difficulties). Arguably, alternative discourses (e.g. a focus on teacher autonomy or positive emotions, do not receive similar attention despite their utility. Worse, and at the crux of this paper is the point that alternative discourses are often not considered alongside or presented in juxtaposition when considering teacher wellbeing (i.e. a ‘partisan approach’ in examining only one perspective at a time), which means there is an otherwise fragmented variety of narrow and/or context-specific concepts promoting alternative discourses to wellbeing, with little consideration as to the potential value of synthesis to holism in approach. Building on extant literature, the current paper examines these current concepts of teacher wellbeing, examining to what extent existing discourses can be synthesised to produce a more comprehensive understanding of what is meant by the term. In doing so, we present an overview of current concepts, examining similarities and distinctiveness. We present a tentative unified model for understanding teacher wellbeing, discussing its suitability as a conceptual frame for future research.

Keywords

• Teachers
• wellbeing
• well-being
• teacher wellbeing
• wellbeing models
• Teachers & Teacher Education