Empowerment and silence: A grounded theory exploration among new teachers.

Abstract

Despite the importance of understanding teacher empowerment and silence to help address issues of teacher shortage and well-being and improve school-based consultation, research on the topic has been understudied and undertheorized, particularly for new teachers. To fill this research gap, we carried out a constructivist grounded theory-based qualitative exploration of factors that contribute to new teachers' empowerment and silence during the COVID-19 pandemic among a sample of 24 first-year new teachers from a large and diverse urban school district in northern California. The findings identified different sets of psychological and social-structural factors contributing to new teachers' empowerment and silence, respectively. Factors contributing to empowerment included autonomy and a sense of accomplishment in the psychological domain and support, appreciation or being acknowledged, and shared beliefs in the social-structural domain. Factors contributing to silence included a lack of self-efficacy in the psychological domain and being limited in the decision-making process, a lack of connected and safe space, and a lack of knowledge of unwritten school norms and procedures in the social-structural domain. Findings suggest that empowerment and silence might be dual-factor constructs driven by different sets of factors that do not fully mirror each other. Findings provided important theoretical and practical implications for creating psychological and social-structural supports to promote new teachers' well-being, increasing school psychologists' effectiveness in providing consultation services with new teachers as their consultees, and creating safe and connected spaces for sharing voices among new teachers with diverse backgrounds. Impact and ImplicationsThis qualitative study based on constructivist grounded theory provides initial evidence revealing the psychological and social-structural factors contributing to first-year teachers' empowerment and silence. The study findings suggest important implications for creating psychological and socialstructural supports to promote new teachers' well-being, increasing school psychologists' effectiveness in administering consultation, and creating safe and connected spaces in which new teachers with diverse backgrounds can share their voices.

School personnel well-being: Advancing measurement, best practices, and policy—Section 1: The role of context and competence in educator well-being.

“…The nine articles highlighted essential areas that effective comprehensive supports will need to include. First, articles consistently found the importance of social connectedness and bonding (e.g., Böke et al, 2023;Mennes et al, 2023;Sandilos et al, 2023;Yang et al, 2023). However, consideration of the context is very important, as connectedness and bonding alone may not be sufficient for enhancing and sustaining teacher well-being.…”

“…A second critical component of teacher and school administrator well-being support will need to be a focus on supporting their autonomy and shared decision making (Nassir & Benoliel, 2024;Yang et al, 2023). Nassir and Benoliel (2024) underscored the power of emotional connections and organization citizenship and commitment, while Yang and colleagues spotlighted how "voice," autonomy, accomplishment, acknowledgment, and shared beliefs foster teacher empowerment.…”

“…One study examined the understudied precursors to teacher well-being, OC, and citizen behavior (Nassir & Benoliel, 2024) providing new avenues for future research to consider. The articles also explored different aspects of well-being such as a sense of empowerment and voice (Yang et al, 2023).…”

“…One of the most common themes across articles in the first section was the importance of social connectedness as a predictor of educator well-being (Böke et al, 2023;Mennes et al, 2023;Sandilos et al, 2023;Wink et al, 2024;Yang et al, 2023). This theme emerged in early childhood (Sandilos et al, 2023) and K-12 contexts (Mennes et al, 2023); in qualitative (Wink et al, 2024;Yang et al, 2023) and quantitative studies (Mennes et al, 2023); and in an intervention study (Böke et al, 2023).…”

“…Thus, while teachers' relationships with assistants are important for buffering stress in manageable classrooms, other interventions and supports are needed to mitigate teacher burnout in classrooms with especially challenging behaviors. Yang et al (2023) examined contextual, or social-structural, and personal factors associated with empowerment and silence in a sample of 24 first-year teachers. They used a constructivist lens to guide their qualitative inquiry.…”