Preschool teachers’ resilience and their readiness for building children's resilience

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the resilience of preschool teachers, aspects of teachers’ readiness to develop children's resilience and the relationship between the two constructs of resilience and readiness. Design/methodology/approach – Two instruments (the “Resilience Scale For Adults” and the “Questionnaire on the Readiness of Preschool Teachers for Developing Children's Resilience”) were used to collect data on resilience and readiness for developing children's resilience from 191 female preschool teachers enrolled in a graduate education programme in the Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Zagreb, Croatia. Data were analysed by factor analyses and a two-way analyses of variance. Findings – Results indicate that preschool teachers achieve high results on resilience measures, and that they have supportive attitudes towards programmes for building children's resilience and are willing to implement such programmes in their everyday practice. Those preschool teachers who perceived themselves as more resilient also considered that they were more competent in developing resilience in children. Additionally, preschool teachers who perceived their kindergarten's institutional climate as supportive, felt that they are more competent for fostering resilience in children, and were at the same time more willing to implement programmes for building children's resilience. Research limitations/implications – The findings suggest that the level of institutional supportiveness is related to preschool teachers’ competence and willingness to foster resilience in children. Those preschool teachers who perceive their institutional climate as supportive feel more willing and competent to implement programmes for developing children's resilience. Additionally, teachers’ competence for developing resilience in children is related to their own resilience: more resilient preschool teachers feel more competent to foster children's resilience. These results suggest that general institutional climate and resilience of those adults who work with preschool children are important aspects of early educational environment, and should be taken into consideration when planning the implementation of programmes for building children's resilience. Originality/value – This research is the first Croatian research on resilience in the context of early childhood education. It also represents a contribution to a relatively small number of studies that link preschool teachers’ resilience with their readiness to foster resilience in children.

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“…The same was true for all the self-efficacy subscales where respondents gained mean scores higher than the expected average scores in the subscales. Perception of high resilience among child care providers has already been mentioned by Bouillet, Ivanec and Miljević-Riđički (2014).…”

“…Considering the multifold function of the CDW and the arduous nature of the child care profession (Levy & Poertner, 2014), exploring DCWs' resilience is substantial in discovering their needs, concerns and professional satisfaction amidst a stressful work environment (Hegney, Rees, Elay, Osseiran-Moisson, & Francis , 2015). In the context of child care profession, a study by Bouillet, Ivanec and Miljević-Riđički (2014), revealed that, at the average, child care professionals, that is, child care educators, rated themselves as having high levels of resilience. The same authors further found that those who perceived being highly resilient also evaluated themselves as capable of fostering resilience among children.…”

“…Resilience was found to be quantitatively associated with life satisfaction (Özbey, Büyüktanir, & Türkoglu, 2014), hope and positive behaviors (Hsing-Ming & Mi-Tao, 2008); and, qualitatively, with teachers' agency, freedom, hope and trust (Sumsion, 2004). In turn, supportive working environment (Bouillet et al, 2014) and capacity building activities such as training (Hraha, 2012) were found to be promoters of resilience.…”

Work-Related Factors as Determinants of Self-efficacy and Resilience among Selected Filipino Child Development Workers

“…Considering the multifold function of the CDW and the arduous nature of the child care profession (Levy & Poertner, 2014), exploring DCWs' resilience is substantial in discovering their needs, concerns and professional satisfaction amidst a stressful work environment (Hegney, Rees, Elay, Osseiran-Moisson, & Francis , 2015). In the context of child care profession, a study by Bouillet, Ivanec and Miljević-Riđički (2014), revealed that, at the average, child care professionals, that is, child care educators, rated themselves as having high levels of resilience. The same authors further found that those who perceived being highly resilient also evaluated themselves as capable of fostering resilience among children.…”

Relación entre género, resiliencia y autoconcepto académico y social en la adolescencia

“…Los individuos que poseen y ponen en práctica este tipo de habilidades, obteniendo un aprendizaje y desarrollo positivo a través de situaciones consideradas desestabilizantes, son aquellos que poseen lo que comúnmente se llama un "perfil resiliente" (Kim y Lee, 2018). La resiliencia está definida como la capacidad de superar situaciones adversas, independientemente del grado de gravedad con el que las percibe cada individuo, que permite salir de ellas fortalecido y de manera airosa (Bouillet, Ivanec y Miljević, 2014;Campos y González, 2018;Rincón, 2016;Rodríguez, Ramos, Martínez y Rey, 2018). Las personas resilientes son capaces de tomar situaciones consideradas perjudiciales como una base para el crecimiento personal y el autoaprendizaje (Richards, Levesque, Templin y Graber 2016).…”