ABSTRACT

Stress has been shown to negatively impact early childhood teachers’ abilities to provide high quality, responsive environments for young children. Previous studies of early childhood teacher stress have focused on the tasks and responsibilities inherent in the job as well as on structural conditions within the field of early childhood education. The present study explored inter- and intra-personal dimensions of early childhood teacher stress and applied the Stress Process model to teachers’ experience of work-related stress. Results from this qualitative study suggest that teachers experience primary stressors associated with the work itself and interactions with others within the workplace. They also experience secondary stressors when their work interferes with other domains of their lives. Despite these stressors, teachers have developed a variety of coping strategies and created networks of social support to buffer the impact of stressors on their practice. These findings use teachers’ own experiences to inform the types of pre-service training, professional development, and policy interventions that have the greatest potential to reduce ECE teacher stress and enable them to provide the highest quality early care and education for all children.

摘要

事实表明，压力会对幼儿教师为幼儿提供高质量，快速响应的环境的能力产生负面影响。先前对幼儿教师压力的研究集中在工作中固有的任务和职责以及幼儿教育领域中的结构性条件。本研究探讨了幼儿教师压力的人际和人际维度，并将压力过程模型应用于教师与工作相关的压力体验。这项定性研究的结果表明，教师会经历与工作本身以及与工作场所其他人的互动相关的主要压力源。当他们的工作干扰生活的其他方面时，他们也会经历二次压力。尽管有这些压力，教师制定了各种应对策略，并建立了社会支持网络，以缓解压力源对其练习的影响。这些发现利用教师自身的经验来告知职前培训，专业发展和政策干预的类型，这些类型具有最大的潜力来减轻ECE教师的压力，并使他们能够为所有儿童提供最优质的早期护理和教育。