This evocative autoethnography is an exploration of learning and perseverance during a particularly dark time in my personal and professional life. In a period of just over 3 years, my spouse and I dealt with the need for several surgeries, the COVID-19-Delta pandemic and subsequent isolation, social unrest, an insurrection in the U.S., and the…

The problem addressed through this study was that public elementary school teachers in the United States have reported increasing levels of workplace stress. Teachers' stress levels need to be studied and addressed because they affect students as well. The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore elementary public school K-3…

The experience of teachers who cope with the potential of violence in their workplaces was the topic of this dissertation. The research question was the following: What is the process of coping with the increased potential of violence in the school/work setting for teachers? This question was posed to examine how teachers process and cope with the…

Special educators are among the countless professionals adversely impacted by the coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic. Before the pandemic, the special education profession was associated with increased occupational stress, anxiety, and job dissatisfaction. As we progress through the first post-pandemic school year, special educators continue…

The Southwest Florida region experienced COVID-19 and a major hurricane between 2020 and 2022. The increase in major emergencies, which are often unpredictable, can be highly distressing for those affected. This phenomenological study describes the lived experiences of academics through these two significant traumatic events and explores the…

The roles of lecturers in universities cannot be underestimated. This is because lecturers are the bones who interpret the content of the curriculum. Hence, lecturers are expected to be efficient. This study however investigated job stress and lecturers' efficiency in Obafemi Awolowo University, IleIfe, Nigeria. The population of the study…

This systematic review uses a bioecological systems model to study occupational stressors and their effects on teachers' performance in schools. We discuss risk factors and coping styles influencing occupational stress at the levels of the biosystem (teacher characteristics), microsystem (class relations), mesosystem (school context), exosystem…

Educators' high levels of stress have been well documented in existing literature, though little research has directly looked at comparisons of stress experiences and needs for support based on school level. The present study included 33 teachers (19 elementary and 14 middle school) from one school district who participated in semistructured…

Higher education institutions (HEIs) globally heavily depend on the resilience of academic staff members to achieve excellence in teaching and learning. The extant scholarly work on resilience seems to take the relationship between workplace environmental factors (WEFs) and the adverse experiences of resilience among women academics for granted.…

The research presented here is a qualitative heuristic inquiry, sparked and driven by the following research question: How do first-year elementary teachers experience coping with strain? This inquiry investigated the experiences of six first-year elementary school teachers coping with strain working in a southwestern state of the United States.…

Teachers all around the world are finding their profession laden with substantial stress. Many are considering quitting, or at a minimum, finding themselves taking time off in order to cope with the pressures of the job. Teachers are over-burdened by low pay and heavy workloads: planning and grading, high expectations, performance evaluations,…

Individuals working in school settings are particularly vulnerable to work-related stress. Data from the 2013 Gallup-Health-ways Well-Being Index found that 46% of teachers in K-12 settings report high levels of daily stress (Lever et al., 2017). About 40% of Black or African American teachers were considering leaving their jobs, compared with…

The majority of children living in the USA have experienced at least one adverse experience. Long term, negative psychological, behavioral, and physical health consequences for students are associated with exposure to traumatic experiences. What is less well understood is how students' exposure to traumatic events may impact the lives and work of…

The purpose of this review of literature was to examine existing research on the application of compassion-based interventions for educator well-being. The review focuses on empirical studies that have used all or components of a compassion-based training, interventions, and programs. Compassion-based programs and interventions have been found to…

The severe teacher shortage in Alabama's rural districts negatively impacts student outcome and educational quality. The purpose of this study was to assess the challenges and coping strategies related to recruiting and retaining teachers in rural Alabama schools. The study's theoretical frameworks are Ryan and Deci's intrinsic motivation and…