The externalized nature of teachers' occupational stress and its association with job satisfaction

The dimension of 'blame' was explored as part of a conceptual framework for teachers' externalization of occupational stress. It was proposed that teachers allocate principal responsibility for their occupational stress to sources external to the individual. The authors suggest that teachers externalize their dissatisfaction to these (external to self) domains. This hypothesis was explored with a sample (n=111) of teachers in the service of the New South Wales Department of Education, Australia. A survey, composed of multiple items, dealt separately with the phenomena of perceived occupational satisfaction-dissatisfaction and stress. Four stress factors were isolated. These were named: personal, student, school and external (to school). These factors were consistent with the authors' hypothesis that teachers generally externalize blame for their stress. Further examination of the association between the satisfaction factor scores and the stress factor scores revealed significant canonical correlations. The main contributors to the correlation between stress and satisfaction factors were the personal domain (stress) and income (satisfaction) and the school domain (stress) and school culture (satisfaction).