Abstract

The declining wellbeing of Australian teachers is a longstanding problem, with much attention on retention, stress, burnout, and poor resourcing and conditions that impact wellbeing. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has further illuminated these challenges. This qualitative study aimed to explore Australian teachers’ perceptions of their wellbeing needs with a focus on asking the questions that are often not asked—what is working, what are we learning, and how can we move forward to support teacher wellbeing? The voices of teachers revealed findings that support a much-needed shift in teacher wellbeing rhetoric in Australia. We illuminate five key areas that influence teacher and sector perceptions of wellbeing: (1) school leadership, (2) professional development, (3) workload and work-life balance, (4) relationships, and (5) stress, positive emotions, and accomplishment. These findings contribute to the need for a change in how teacher wellbeing is approached and highlight the possible implications of what is working, needs, barriers, and insights for preservice teacher education and professional development of teachers.

RAS ID

62638

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

1-1-2024

Funding Information

Open Access funding enabled and organized by CAUL and its Member Institutions

School

School of Education

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Publisher

Springer

Comments

Lemon, N., & Turner, K. (2024). Unravelling the wellbeing needs of Australian teachers: A qualitative inquiry. The Australian Educational Researcher. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-023-00687-9

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

10.1007/s13384-023-00687-9