Summary

Inclusion, Stress and Well-Being

Increasing school inclusion leads to new challenges for teachers and school teams. Do teachers at schools with high inclusion demands experience more stress? Which personal and school-related factors have a positive effect on the well-being of teachers? And how do pupils and legal guardians experience inclusive schools? The research project is investigating these questions. It is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and supported by the umbrella organisation of Swiss teachers (Dachverband Lehrerinnen und Lehrer Schweiz). For the project, school teams, pupils, and legal guardians from around 200 schools in German-speaking Switzerland are to be surveyed and interviews conducted with 20 school teams. The aim of the project is to identify health-promoting and stress-reducing characteristics in the context of school inclusion in order to support school teams.

Project

What is it all about?

In recent years, increasing school inclusion has led to additional demands and challenges for teachers and school teams. In the media it is currently being made responsible for stress, burnout and teacher shortages, among other things. Numerous schools are caught between the obligation to include, and the challenges posed by the increasing heterogeneity of pupils. Nevertheless, there are hardly any empirical studies that analyse the connection between the effective inclusion requirements, which vary from school to school, and possible negative consequences for teachers and school teams. There is a major research gap, particularly regarding possible stress-reducing and health-promoting aspects in context of inclusion that go beyond the subjective assessments of teachers and systematically include the school level.

What are the objectives?

As part of the planned project, the Job Demands-Resources Model (Schaufeli & Taris, 2014) will be used to investigate the questions of the extent to which objective inclusion-related demands (e.g. the number of integrated pupils with special educational needs) and resources (e.g. number of support lessons) are associated with perceived experience of strain and stress as well as with aspects of well-being. We are also interested in the way in which factors at the personal and school level moderate these processes. For example, to what extent differences in inclusion requirements are associated with the well-being and satisfaction of teachers, pupils and legal guardians. An additional focus on inclusive school development aims to analyse aspects that promote and hinder the implementation of inclusion in schools and, on the other hand, factors that promote and reduce stress.

What does the study design look like?

A total of 200 schools (principals as well as all teachers and additional professionals) are surveyed in written form in a main study on demands and resources in relation to inclusion, general stress levels, work commitment and further outcomes. A distinction is made between objective and subjective demands and resources. Furthermore, individual teacher characteristics and, from a multi-level analytical perspective, factors at school level and aggregated aspects of school climate are taken into account. In addition, in a partial survey of 200 randomly selected school classes, aspects of satisfaction and well-being of pupils and legal guardians are also examined.

In a further step, 20 schools will be selected from the main study for a qualitative in-depth study. This is dedicated to the question of the conditions for success and stress-reducing factors at inclusive schools. For this purpose, problem-centred interviews on various dimensions of inclusive school development (principals) and open written surveys on factors that promote inclusion and reduce stress (teachers and additional professionals) will be conducted and analysed.

Why is the project important?

In terms of teacher health and discussions about the reorganisation of the separative school system, the project is highly relevant and topical. The results provide valuable information for inclusive school development and for the initial and further training of teachers. A major strength and innovation of this project is its focus on the school level in order to go beyond individual characteristics and identify important factors and positive development processes in dealing with heterogeneity and inclusion and thus support school management and teams in inclusive school development. The application-oriented project is broadly supported, including by the umbrella organisation Swiss Teachers' Association (Dachverband Lehrerinnen und Lehrer Schweiz).