Teacher stress in the Macau workplace

This thesis addresses workplace stress in teachers in Macau. The term "stress‟ is seen to include a very wide range of factors, and to do justice to these requires a multi-disciplinary approach to the topic. This is addressed through a comprehensive and wide-ranging literature review and a substantial empirical investigation of teachers in the workplace in Macau. The thesis conducts a substantial literature and an empirical study (using a cross-sectional survey and a qualitative approach) on the whole population of teachers in Macau. Empirical data were collected on the nature, causes and sources, outcomes, and coping strategies in teachers in relation to stress in their workplace activities and behaviour. With very large numbers of participants, the data gathered could permit high level statistical analysis and generalization. The thesis is informed by structuration theory, in which both teachers‟ agentic behaviour and stress themselves are found to be causes, media and outcomes of further stress, both producing and reproducing stress. Further, the study locates the understanding of teacher stress in Macau within cultural and school organizational, leadership and management contexts, generating a comprehensive picture of teacher stress in the workplace in Macau, and how it can be addressed. How the thesis makes an original contribution to the field theoretically, methodologically and substantively is indicted in the thesis. The findings indicate high levels of teacher stress in Macau, particularly amongst younger teachers. It finds that, whilst teachers are, in part, agents of their own stress, those agentic decisions are also, in much larger part, highly conditioned, constrained and controlled by the cultural, organizational, leadership and management practices in their workplaces and beyond. Exogenous stress is handled endogenously by teachers. The study finds that teachers in Macau do not have sufficient or suitable coping strategies for the stress that is imposed on them, and reasons for this are indicated. Implications for practice are drawn and recommendations are made for intervention by several parties at several levels of the schooling system in Macau.