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Organizational Interventions to Reduce Sources of K-12 Teachers’ Occupational Stress

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Educator Stress

Part of the book series: Aligning Perspectives on Health, Safety and Well-Being ((AHSW))

Abstract

Organizational interventions that may reduce sources of occupational stress faced by K-12 teachers take many forms, including support/skills building interventions, such as mentoring programs, Peer Assistance and Review (PAR), teacher assistance teams, and teacher training on classroom management, as well as forms of job redesign. Most interventions have been designed primarily to improve or support professional practice and not to address work-related stress. We reviewed 27 empirical studies and review papers on organizational interventions published between 1990 and 2015, and found some evidence that mentoring and induction programs and PAR programs can increase support, skill development, decision-making authority, and perhaps job security, for teachers. However, there is limited evidence linking these interventions to a reduction in teacher stress or improvements in teacher health. We also describe other policy, union (collective bargaining) and legislative drivers of some of these models such as union and collective bargaining initiatives that have resulted in mentoring, PAR, and team teaching, state legislation on prevention of bullying and harassment of teachers and district programs, participation/school-based management, prevention of harassment/ bullying/violence, management of disruptive students, and employee assistance programs. However, these policy-based interventions need to be evaluated by research. Research is also needed to evaluate the impact on job characteristics and teacher health of professional learning communities, professional capital, co-teaching, school climate, and workplace violence prevention. Finally, we present a research agenda to enable a better understanding of the types of organizational programs and policies that can reduce stressful working conditions faced by K-12 teachers and potentially improve their health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, School of Public Health, State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Medical Center, New York, NY, USA

    Paul Landsbergis

  2. Occupational Health Clinical Center, Syracuse, NY, USA

    Jeanette Zoeckler

  3. School of Public Health, State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate, Brooklyn, NY, USA

    Bianca Rivera

  4. American Federation of Teachers, Health, Safety and Well-being Department, Washington, DC, USA

    Darryl Alexander & Amy Bahruth

  5. New York State United Teachers, Albany, NY, USA

    Wendy Hord

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  1. Paul Landsbergis
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  2. Jeanette Zoeckler
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  4. Darryl Alexander
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Correspondence to Paul Landsbergis .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, College of Education and Behavioral Sciences, Houston Baptist University , Houston, Texas, USA

    Teresa Mendonça McIntyre

  2. College of Human Sciences and Humanities, University of Houston-Clear Lake, Houston, Texas, USA

    Scott E. McIntyre

  3. Department of Psychology, Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics, University of Houston, Houston, Texas, USA

    David J. Francis

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Landsbergis, P., Zoeckler, J., Rivera, B., Alexander, D., Bahruth, A., Hord, W. (2017). Organizational Interventions to Reduce Sources of K-12 Teachers’ Occupational Stress. In: McIntyre, T., McIntyre, S., Francis, D. (eds) Educator Stress. Aligning Perspectives on Health, Safety and Well-Being. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53053-6_16

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