Teacher Well-Being in an Inclusive Secondary School

Abstract

In the development of this chapter, the authors paid particular attention to what is referred to in the literature as ‘teacher pedagogical well-being’ (TPWB) (Soini et al., Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 16:735–751, 2010). It is constructed ‘in the core processes of teachers’ work that is, carrying out and developing teaching–learning process, including, for example, planning classroom activities, interacting with pupils, making evaluations, and choosing and developing instructional tools’ (2010, p. 737). The chapter authors comprised of academics from the University of Limerick together with teachers from the site school involved in the research. The latter was a disadvantaged second-level school in an urban environment in the mid-west region of Ireland. The research was conducted in two phases. In phase one, a focus group was conducted with a convenience sample of teachers to explore their views and perceptions on TPWB. A principal finding which emerged was the conviction that opportunities for the teachers to engage in safe dialogic spaces about their pedagogic work as classroom practitioners were very beneficial towards both supporting and nurturing their experiences of teacher pedagogical well-being. This finding informed the second phase of the research. A focus group was conducted with two existing groups of teachers who met regularly at the school, one for literacy and one for numeracy. It was intended that this phase of the research would identify characteristics to maximise the potential of Teacher Learning Communities (TLCs) to enhance and nurture TPWB.