Event Title
Discovering Differential Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Education Workforce
Start Date
28-6-2021 9:15 AM
End Date
28-6-2021 10:00 AM
Topic
Stress and Adapting to New Technology
Session Chair
Masahiro Yamamoto
Abstract
Important relationships between public health and education sectors remain under-developed due to a potent combination of public policy silos including separate organizations and specialized professions. This situation is unfortunate because the health status of students and families is a social determinant of educational outcomes. Reciprocally, educational outcomes, manifested during adulthood as a potent combination of employment and socio-economic status, are a social determinant of individual and family health (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2019). Indeed, the import of educational outcomes for the prevention of health disparities is illuminated by a critical finding: For every life saved by specialized health and medical interventions, seven more could be saved by improved education outcomes (Ibid). Because health disparities and education-related disparities are intertwined, research focused on their relations is timely. This mixed method study sought to illuminate occupational stress, job satisfaction, and performance adaptation disparities of leaders and educators working in districts and schools serving different subpopulations of students (i.e. ethnically, linguistically, and socioeconomically) and in different types of communities (i.e. urban, suburban, rural) in New York state. Our interdisciplinary research team was guided by the following research questions: 1. To what extent and how do school leaders and teachers experience stress in response to covid-19 disruptions? 2.To what extent and how do school leaders and teachers indicate a change in job satisfaction in response to covid-19 disruptions? and 3. To what extent and how do school leaders and teachers indicate changes in their work or personal life in response to covid-19 disruptions? This analysis focused on a subset of survey questions focused on stress and intent to leave the profession gathered from 16 schools and highlights analysis of open-ended responses from two schools. The survey findings indicated that educators’ stress and intent to leave varies across schools serving different percentages of economically disadvantaged students. But, the relationship between educator stress and rates of economic disadvantage are not linear. Qualitative analysis of the open ended survey responses indicated that school 6 is a positive outlier (i.e. relatively low intentions to leave and low levels of stress) whereas educators from school 1 indicated they are more likely to leave their job and have experienced relatively higher levels of stress. A notable contrast in these two settings was with regard to how the community, district and school leaders relate to each other with School 1 staff expressing being insufficiently supported by both community and leaders, whereby in School 6, while stress was evident, a general sense of community and leader support was evident. While this study is still ongoing, one clear conclusion from this preliminary analysis is that the pandemic has exacerbated some of the challenges facing leaders and educators serving more economically disadvantaged students and that community context and community-school relations appear to have impacted educator levels of stress, job satisfaction, and adaptations. This research promises guidance for education officials, health officials, and public policy leaders as they wrestle with pandemic-related challenges.
Document Type
Extended Abstract
Discovering Differential Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Education Workforce
Important relationships between public health and education sectors remain under-developed due to a potent combination of public policy silos including separate organizations and specialized professions. This situation is unfortunate because the health status of students and families is a social determinant of educational outcomes. Reciprocally, educational outcomes, manifested during adulthood as a potent combination of employment and socio-economic status, are a social determinant of individual and family health (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2019). Indeed, the import of educational outcomes for the prevention of health disparities is illuminated by a critical finding: For every life saved by specialized health and medical interventions, seven more could be saved by improved education outcomes (Ibid). Because health disparities and education-related disparities are intertwined, research focused on their relations is timely. This mixed method study sought to illuminate occupational stress, job satisfaction, and performance adaptation disparities of leaders and educators working in districts and schools serving different subpopulations of students (i.e. ethnically, linguistically, and socioeconomically) and in different types of communities (i.e. urban, suburban, rural) in New York state. Our interdisciplinary research team was guided by the following research questions: 1. To what extent and how do school leaders and teachers experience stress in response to covid-19 disruptions? 2.To what extent and how do school leaders and teachers indicate a change in job satisfaction in response to covid-19 disruptions? and 3. To what extent and how do school leaders and teachers indicate changes in their work or personal life in response to covid-19 disruptions? This analysis focused on a subset of survey questions focused on stress and intent to leave the profession gathered from 16 schools and highlights analysis of open-ended responses from two schools. The survey findings indicated that educators’ stress and intent to leave varies across schools serving different percentages of economically disadvantaged students. But, the relationship between educator stress and rates of economic disadvantage are not linear. Qualitative analysis of the open ended survey responses indicated that school 6 is a positive outlier (i.e. relatively low intentions to leave and low levels of stress) whereas educators from school 1 indicated they are more likely to leave their job and have experienced relatively higher levels of stress. A notable contrast in these two settings was with regard to how the community, district and school leaders relate to each other with School 1 staff expressing being insufficiently supported by both community and leaders, whereby in School 6, while stress was evident, a general sense of community and leader support was evident. While this study is still ongoing, one clear conclusion from this preliminary analysis is that the pandemic has exacerbated some of the challenges facing leaders and educators serving more economically disadvantaged students and that community context and community-school relations appear to have impacted educator levels of stress, job satisfaction, and adaptations. This research promises guidance for education officials, health officials, and public policy leaders as they wrestle with pandemic-related challenges.
Comments
The recording of this presentation ends at 1:16:00