How Teachers Understand Their Wellness Work, Role, and Responsibilities

• In Event: Teacher Stress and Coping: Teachers' Experiences Navigating Student Wellness During COVID-19

Abstract

Teachers’ role as first responders to student wellness concerns (see above), alongside other wellness professionals who also address student wellness (Weist et al., 2012), contribute to teachers’ uncertainty about the parameters of their wellness work responsibilities (Phillippo & Kelly, 2014). The pandemic further complicated this ambiguity. Teachers identified student wellness concerns, yet did not always encounter sufficient support to respond (Childs et al., 2022). These conditions created space for us to explore how teachers understand their work supporting student wellness. We asked:
1) To what extent do teachers describe wellness work as part of their professional responsibilities?
(2) To what degree are teachers’ descriptions of their wellness work responsibilities associated with individual teacher or contextual characteristics?

Our theoretical framework blends together literature on roles and teacher identity. Both pertain to teachers’ wellness support role, yet have not been applied previously. Teacher identity (e.g., Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009) and professional role (e.g., Wittmayer et al., 2017) are each theorized as fluid, dynamic, contextually situated, and a platform for action rather than a directive script. In both bodies of knowledge, there is an assumed iterative relationship between role or identity 1) definition and orientation, 2) performance and 3) assessment.

To pursue our research questions, our interdisciplinary research team drew upon data from a survey that inquired about PK-12 teachers’ wellness work and supports for it during the pandemic’s early months (N=2117). One write in question asked what respondents would like their school leaders to know about their wellness work. Our preliminary findings draw from our analysis of responses to this question (N=350).

Respondents’ wellness work role definition fell into three categories, in which teachers 1) included wellness work in their role, 2) rejected it, or 3) reported mixed responses. Includers noted a tension over how much attention to give to student academic needs relative to student wellness needs, and their unique knowledge of students and potential to contribute to student support. Rejectors asserted that they should not have to address student wellness needs (“Everything is too much. I am not a nurse, social worker, custodian and babysitter.”). Mixed respondents either wanted to do more wellness work than they were able or allowed to, or problematized wellness work but did it anyway. Most respondents (across types) negatively assessed their wellness work performance, describing it as time consuming and difficult, and citing inadequate preparation.

Our role definition typology will anchor subsequent quantitative analysis, using Pearson’s chi square to determine associations between teacher “types” and individual (e.g., race, years of experience), school (e.g. private or public, student populations served) and community (e.g., urban, suburban or rural) characteristics.

Our study promises contributions in that it provides empirical data on how teachers define their wellness work responsibilities, extending beyond extant work based on hypothetical vignettes (Green et al., 2018) and highly structured interventions (Franklin et al., 2012). We encourage teacher professional development, alongside structural arrangements that support teachers in their unique role without isolating them from their wellness support professional colleagues.

Authors

• Kate L. Phillippo, Loyola University Chicago
  Presenting Author

• Audra Parker, George Mason University
  Presenting Author

• Elizabeth F. Levine-Brown, George Mason University
  Presenting Author

• Naomi Brown, George Mason University
  Presenting Author