Browsing by Author "Nakari, Noora"

Teachers' well-being has been portrayed in the Finnish media from time to time. The purpose of this study was to make visible the discussion that has been ongoing in the opinion section of Helsingin Sanomat about teachers' coping at work and work well-being, and with the help of these opinion pieces make visible those things that have had either a negative or a positive impact on teachers' coping at work and work well-being. Teachers' work well-being has been studied widely before and numerous studies show that according to teachers, amongst the things that burden their work well-being are for instance physical and verbal violence, bullying, amount of work and inefficiency of the occupational healthcare services. The aim of this study is to raise awareness of those things that have an impact on teachers' well-being at work. The research was carried out as a qualitative research using thematising as the data analysis method. The data of this study were opinion pieces that were published either on the opinion section of the Helsingin Sanomat online version or at Hs.fi/mielipide from 12th of October 2016 to 31st of December 2016. The study involved those opinion pieces that, either mainly or at least for the most part, concentrated on teachers' work well-being and coping at work. According to the analysis of the data the things that influence negatively teachers' coping at work and work well-being in this study were physical and verbal violence, bullying, harassment (including sexual harassment), disorder in the work environment, lack of working peace, insecurity, fear, helplessness and shortcomings in teacher training and in the resources at hand. Other things that had a negative impact on teacher's well-being were lack of support, amount of work, lack of time, workload, work exhaustion, economical savings, wage levels, lack of appreciation, uncertainty, student diversity, profession's public criticism, failures, and changes within the teacher profession. On the other hand positive aspects of the work were the teacher's conviction and professionalism, appreciation of the profession, cooperation, recognition of the pupils' absolute value, support of the occupational healthcare services, protection of healthcare law and recognition of one's own strengths as a teacher.