Further Education Teachers’ Wellbeing: A Discussion of Equal Opportunities and Career Progression (Published)
This research examines the relationship between wellbeing, career aspirations and equal opportunities prospects among FE teachers and support staff expectations. An online questionnaire asked further education (FE) teachers to comment on items of: – Emotional Labour, Teachers’ Emotional Labour, Teachers’ Emotional Labour Strategy and Burnout. Further Education teachers also noted the number of stressors they generally encountered. Although female teachers experienced more stressors, their wellbeing was relatively higher than male teachers. Furthermore, wellbeing was higher for the majority ethnic group (White British) FE teachers. The importance of this research is that an association is made between the wellbeing of FE teachers and that it influences the choices they make for continual professional development (CPD). This has consequences for staff retention in FE colleges. Thematic analysis of focus group interviews suggests that equal opportunities for FE teachers require further investigation as well as career progression across ethnicities among U.K. FE colleges.
Keywords: Burnout, CPD, Emotions, Ethnicity, Fe, Gender
A Qualitative Investigation of Further Education (Fe, U.K.) Teachers’ Appraisal of Emotions (Published)
Walifa Rasheed-Karim (2022) A Qualitative Investigation of Further Education (FE, U.K.) Teachers’ Appraisal of Emotions, British Journal of Education, Vol.10, Issue 3, pp. 42-72
Abstract: This paper reports that appraisal of emotions by further education (FE) teachers will enable the operationalisation of improving their wellbeing. The paper sets the context and methodological approaches for investigating the use of emotions by two, experienced FE teachers. The research reported concludes that teachers experience emotions, and these may cause distress as well as engender positive emotions. Stressors (leadership styles, job insecurity and policies) bring about experiences of emotions as well as thoughts of how to manage these. Teachers varied in their use of emotions due to job roles- lead teacher opposed to a supply level teacher’s role and appraised situations because of role types. Policy and leadership practices influenced the management of emotions for the teachers. Job design as well as how emotions are appraised in conditions such as job insecurity and leadership types should be further investigated across FE teachers’ level of experiences and age ranges.
Keywords: Emotions, Teachers, appraisal strategies, further education