Subjective Well-Being of Teachers in Kindergartens With Various Types of Educational Environment

Abstract

Introduction. The subjective well-being of educators is one of the crucial indicators of psychological safety of an educational environment in a kindergarten, and so is the type of this environment itself. Therefore, identifying the features of the subjective well-being of educators working in various educational environments in a kindergarten is a relevant objective in terms of both the psychological safety of modern education and the direct psychological support of preschool teachers. Materials and methods. An empirical study involved 15 kindergartens in the cities of Chita and Irkutsk. Based on the expert assessment of the educational environment, according to the classifi cation by V. A. Yasvin and M. S. Mirimanova, the 15 kindergartens were divided into three groups of 5 kindergartens, each with a passive, active, and neutral educational environment. Data on subjective well-being were collected on a sample of 52 kindergarten teachers using the questionnaire by R. M. Shamionov and T. V. Beskova, including five indicators of subjective well-being and its generalized index. Research results. Findings revealed that an active educational environment in a kindergar ten has a positive effect on such indicators of subjective well-being of educators as emotional well-being, existential-activity well-being, and subjective well-being in general. A passive educational environment builds a higher level of social and normative well-being of educators but low values for all other subjective well-being indicators. Conclusion. The active educational environment of the kindergarten is much more favorable in terms of the psychological safety of educators. This fact allows us to consider an active educational environment to be one of the generalized conditions for the psychological safety of the educational environment in a kindergarten. The study of the psychological safety indicators for kindergarten pupils, given the type of educational environment and the subjective well-being of teachers, is the nearest prospect of this study.