Secondary Traumatic Stress and the Classroom Environment: A Study on Head Start Teachers

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Aspiring Teachers/Coaching Support (Table 8)

Abstract

Young students who may be experiencing trauma often display external behaviors in the Head
Start classrooms that can create secondary traumatic stress in the educators working with them.
This secondary traumatic stress can affect educators’ mental health and their ability to create a
positive classroom environment for their students. This transcendental phenomenological study
explored the experiences of 13 Head Start teachers in select public schools from southeastern
Florida, who experienced significant adversities as children. The participants noted how integral
the classroom environment was to student interactions and felt intrinsically motivated by their
desire to see the students succeed. The findings showed the reciprocal effects of the constructs of
the environment and the participants’ perceptions of their self-efficacy and mental health.

Authors

• Elizabeth Urgell, Florida International University

• Rashmi Sharma, Western Illinois University

• Hongwei Yang, University of West Florida

• Chad Hodge, University of West Florida