Chapter 8: School Administrators? Engagement in Teacher Induction: The Impact on Early Career Teachers? Well-being and Success

Recent studies have uncovered significant struggles experienced by teaching professionals across Canada. These struggles are associated with increasing workloads, maintaining work-life balance, and dealing with workplace stress. In turn, workload, balance and stress negatively affect teachers’ well-being, instructional capacity, and job satisfaction, and these have prompted teachers to leave the profession (Duxbury & Higgins, 2013; Froese-Germain, 2014; Johnston-Gibbens, 2014). The high emotional labour and the stress-prone nature of work make teaching a demanding profession (Brennan, 2006; Farber, 2000; Vesely et al., 2013). It is fair to assume that workload and stress-related factors are substantially amplified and complexified in the work lives of early career teachers (ECTs), who face significant pressures and challenges related to having a successful start to the teaching profession. Such challenges are linked with isolation, reality shock, cultural adjustment, inadequate resources and support, lack of time for planning and interaction with colleagues, difficult work assignments, intergenerational gap, dealing with stress and burnout, lack of orientation and induction support, and institutional practices and policies that promote hazing and “trial by fire” experiences (Andrews & Quinn, 2004; Anhorn, 2008; Darling-Hammond, 2003; Johnson & Kardos, 2002, 2005; Kyriacou, 2001; Patterson, 2005). In addition, ECTs are also affected by multi-layered and complicated sets of expectations for teaching, evaluation, and professional development from their employers, principals, peers, parents, and students (Guardino & Fullerton, 2010; Kyriacou & Kunc, 2007; Whisnant et al., 2005).