‘Always ready and always well’: Exploring stress on school principals in Chile

Felipe Aravena and Álvaro González

International Journal of Educational Development, 2021, vol. 84, issue C

Abstract: Educational systems worldwide have increased the responsibilities and tasks of principals, seeking to improve schools’ performance. As a result, the role of principals has become increasingly challenging and stressful, having a negative impact on principals’ attraction and retention, job satisfaction as well as their mental and physical health. This paper explores how a group of 21 Chilean school principals working in the Valparaiso Region experience stress, based on individual semi-structured interviews about their subjective experiences in their role. Findings suggest that principals consider their work to be challenging, associated with several demanding situations in their schools which contribute to feeling stress. Stressors identified by principals can be organized into three groups: work-related, such as dealing with bureaucratic pressures and lack of support from municipal authorities; relationship-related, such as managing relations with a wide range of school actors and the emotional burden of interacting with them; and time-related, such as being always available to solve problems and feeling isolated in this task.

Keywords: Principals; Stress; Chile (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0738059321000523
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:injoed:v:84:y:2021:i:c:s0738059321000523

DOI: 10.1016/j.ijedudev.2021.102399

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Educational Development is currently edited by Stephen P Heyneman

More articles in International Journal of Educational Development from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().