Welcome to this month's edition of Researching education: Five further readings. In this series, we take a look at some further readings available on a particular topic, including open access research papers from various online databases, and Teacher archive content you might not have come across yet.
Educator wellbeing can look different for different educators. However, it’s something that many educators have struggled with both during and prior to the pandemic. In this edition of Researching education: Five further readings, we’re sharing five readings on the topic of educator wellbeing from leading researchers and institutions in Australia, which look at both local and international data.
- AITSL Spotlight: Wellbeing in Australian Schools. This spotlight published in 2022 by the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership Limited (AITSL) examines both learner and educator wellbeing in Australia. As well as establishing an understanding of learner wellbeing in depth, it explores the current state of educator wellbeing, how schools can support educator wellbeing, and the resources available to them.
- Wellbeing in educational contexts. Published in 2019 by the University of Southern Queensland in Australia, this book maps the state of educator wellbeing in Australia though exploring prior knowledge, theoretical understandings of wellbeing, how policy and legislation come into play, contemporary perspectives on wellbeing, practical applications of an education-wide wellbeing focus, and ecological and contextual analyses of wellbeing by context. The authors identify a lack of consensus for the application of wellbeing programs in education, and aim to address this in their work.
- Teacher wellbeing: a review of the literature. Published by the Association of Independent Schools of NSW, this literature review analyses 191 Australian and international studies from 2001 to 2017, which have a specific focus on teacher wellbeing and wellness. The researchers found that a substantial portion of the literature focused on broad negative influences on teacher wellbeing, and that positive whole school initiatives which recognise the diversity and individuality of wellbeing are needed.
- Teacher wellbeing during a pandemic: Surviving or thriving? This paper from the Australian Council for Educational Research considers how teacher wellbeing has been affected during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the increased workload of teachers despite the pre-existing risk of teacher burnout. The author explores the importance of supporting teacher wellbeing before, during, and after the pandemic.
- Teacher Staffroom Episode 29: Prioritising your wellbeing. In this Teacher Staffroom podcast episode, we looked at a selection of wellbeing-focused content from Teacher, including the impact of nutrition on sleep, maintaining fitness during the pandemic, the impact of gardening on wellbeing and more.
Some of the resources featured in this article can be found through Cunningham Library Catalogue and EdResearch Online. At the links below, you can search for more resources on the topic of educator wellbeing in these two online databases.
- Educator wellbeing: Cunningham Library Catalogue
- Educator wellbeing: EdResearch Online
You can also browse other topics at this page.
The Cunningham Library membership is open to individuals, schools and organisations. Membership includes access to a comprehensive collection of education research literature; weekday alerts to a selection of Australian education news; fast supply of articles and books from the collection; support in finding research; and an integrated online search tool that works across all our resources.
To become a library member, visit the website.
