Teacher appraisals of demand–resource imbalances in racially concentrated schools: An extension of transactional theory with Black, Hispanic, and White U.S. teachers.

Abstract

The transactional theory posits that when teachers appraise classroom demands as exceeding classroom resources, they are at a higher risk for stress. However, researching appraisals is challenging because they result from individual interpretation and can vary across workplace settings. The goal of this study was to better understand the teacher appraisal process in the context of diverse racial/ethnic school environments in the United States. Black, Hispanic, and White teachers' classroom appraisals, job satisfaction, and workplace fatigue were examined in schools where teachers' self-reported race/ethnicity was congruent or incongruent with the predominant racial/ethnic demography of their schools. The participants in this study (N ϭ 25,420) were full-time, public school teachers who responded to the National Center for Education Statistics 2015-2016 National Teacher Principal Survey. Main effects for differences in appraisals by teachers' race/ethnicity and building demography were found, indicating White teachers tended to appraise classroom demands as higher relative to resources than Black or Hispanic teachers across all school types, and all three teacher race/ethnicity groups tended to appraise classroom demands as higher than resources in majority Black or Hispanic schools-all of which indicated a higher risk for stress. Higher job satisfaction and lower workplace fatigue were also reported in majority White schools. Interactions between teacher race/ethnicity and building demography were also found.

Elementary teacher occupational health outcomes across schools with varying resources and demographics

“…Because of the design choice to use PSM, which uses logistic regression to produce the probability of a binary outcome, teacher‐student match was operationalized as “congruent” or “incongruent.” Prior research has established different thresholds for majority status, including 50% (Mueller et al, 1999), 60% (Renzulli et al, 2011), and 70% (Fairchild et al, 2012). McCarthy et al (2021) found similar patterns in Appraisal Index scores for Black, Hispanic, and White teachers whether 51%−74% or >75% criteria was used for majority status. Given this finding, and the fact that a lower threshold of >50% allowed us to retain more Black and Hispanic teachers in the analysis, a > 50% criteria was used in this study.…”

“…Importantly for the current study, information about teachers' appraisals of their classroom demands and resources is available in the NTPS, and prior studies were able to replicate the CARD Appraisal Index protocol with similarly themed items assessing demands and resources (Fitchett et al, 2019). This study using the Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS) and NTPS has also found that (a) all teachers report higher levels of stress in under‐resourced, majority‐minority schools, but (b) White teachers report even higher demand levels than Black or Hispanic teachers working in majority−minority schools (Fitchett et al, 2020; McCarthy et al, 2021). These previous findings linking demography to teacher stress require the examination of other literatures, such as those that have considered the inequitable contexts in which teachers work, which is reviewed next.…”

“…Given such resource inequities, it is not surprising that Black, Hispanic, and White teachers all reported higher levels of stress when teaching in under‐resourced, majority‐minority schools than teachers working in majority White schools (Fitchett et al, 2020). Revealingly, however, White teachers report even higher demand levels than Black or Hispanic teachers when working in majority−minority schools (Bottiani et al, 2019; McCarthy et al, 2021). Given the increasing diversity of the student population and the relative stagnancy of teacher diversity—which remains predominantly White and female (De Brey et al, 2021)—a better understanding of the relevant contribution of resource inequities and demography to teacher stress is imperative to promote educational equity across all school settings.…”

New teachers' risk for stress: associations with mentoring supports

“…The current study focused on one of the mechanisms through which mentoring can support new teachers – by serving as a resource for the demands they face. Given that stress risk is dependent upon the unique ways in which teachers appraise their individual working environments (McCarthy et al. , 2021), findings suggest that the ways in which teachers can be resourced via mentorship will need to be context specific and individually flexible.…”

“…Thus, teachers who appraise their available workplace resources as insufficient compared to workplace demands are theoretically at greater risk for stress than teachers who either (1) perceive their workplace demands and resources as being approximately balanced or (2) perceive an overall imbalance but view their resources as sufficient compared to workplace demands (e.g. Clarà, 2017; McCarthy et al. , 2021).…”