Language teachers’ capitals as resources for wellbeing across the career trajectories

ABSTRACT

Over their career trajectories, teachers experience diverse challenges and uplifts, which influence their sense of wellbeing. While research on teacher career phases provides important insights into their lives, studies exploring teacher wellbeing and capitals they draw on to cope are scarce; and, in the field of language education, virtually non-existent. In this article, we explore the capitals of 58 language teachers from Austria and the UK in pre-service, early-, mid-, and late-career phases. Data were gathered through in-depth semi-structured interviews and were analysed utilising a combination of inductive and deductive data analyses. The findings revealed four interrelated capitals which supported these teachers’ wellbeing: Psychological, social, human, and health capitals. This study offers key insights into wellbeing through the lens of capitals with clear implications for policy-makers, teacher educators, and other relevant stakeholders to understand how to support language teachers in their professional roles.

KEYWORDS:

• Capitals
• language teachers
• wellbeing
• language teacher career phases

Introduction

Across their careers, teachers draw on a variety of resources to combat stress and to retain a sense of equilibrium and wellbeing. In different phases of their lives, teachers tend to have different ‘centers of gravity’ (Goodson 2008, 34) – a focus and energy towards certain life domains, such as school or family. Each phase is characterised by challenges and resources unique to the particular period with different consequences for individuals’ wellbeing (Hobfoll 2002; Sulis et al. 2023). This article focuses on understanding the causes of stress and sources of strength, known as capitals, for language teachers across their career trajectories and the interplay between these in order to be able to offer appropriate support for teachers at all phases of their professional careers.

This article contributes to understanding of wellbeing in general and teacher wellbeing in particular. To date, wellbeing has been typically explored through two major perspectives – hedonic and eudemonic (Ryan and Deci 2001). The hedonic perspective is defined in terms of experiencing pleasure and positive emotions, while avoiding pain and negative emotions (e.g. Kahneman, Diener, and Schwarz 1999). The eudemonic perspective entails individuals’ sense of meaning, self-actualisation, and the degree to which people ‘are “doing well” (rather than merely “feeling good”)’ (Jayawickreme, Forgeard, and Seligman 2012, 328). Within the field of education, the wellbeing of teachers has been predominantly investigated through the lens of occupational stress and burnout (e.g. Cooper and Kelly 1993; Fittchet et al. 2018), while only a small number of studies focused on the positive factors that contribute to educators’ wellbeing (e.g. Holmes 2005; Mercer and Gregersen 2020). A useful model for this study is the resources and challenges model proposed by Dodge and colleagues (2012), who suggest that wellbeing emerges when ‘individuals have the psychological, social and physical resources they need to meet a particular […] challenge. When individuals have more challenges than resources, the see-saw dips, along with their wellbeing, and vice-versa’ (230). As such, our specific lens for understanding language teacher wellbeing in this study are capitals. Capitals are defined as sets of resources individuals accumulate over time and draw on to cope in times of stress (Luthans, Luthans, and Luthans 2004). By focusing on capitals, this study adds to a much-needed discussion about positive aspects that support the wellbeing of teachers across the career span (e.g. Day 2017; Day et al. 2007).

The study reported on in this article was part of a large international research project that explored the wellbeing of language teachers from two European countries, Austria and the UK, across their career trajectories. This article reports on the findings from in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with 58 secondary-school language teachers from both countries.

Literature review

Conceptualising capitals as resources

In the literature, capitals are typically characterised as ‘resources withdrawn from consumption that are invested for future anticipated returns’ (Luthans, Luthans, and Luthans 2004, 45). We understand capitals as a set of resources that individuals accrue and can draw on to cope with stress and protect their wellbeing over time (Hobfoll 2002; Luthans, Luthans, and Luthans 2004). Capitals can be developed and replenished through other resources as well as positive outcomes from different life domains; and as such, can be tapped into to fight stress and retain one’s positive sense of wellbeing over time (e.g. Cosco, Howse, and Brayne 2017; Hobfoll 2002; Luthans, Luthans, and Luthans 2004). In this article, we examine four different kinds of capitals that teachers in this study drew on to differing degrees to manage their wellbeing: Psychological (Youssef‐Morgan and Luthans 2015), social (Bourdieu 1986; Hobfoll 2002), human (Hobfoll 2002; OECD 2001), and health capitals (e.g. Grossman 1972; Schneider-Kamp 2020).

Psychological capital (PsyCap) refers to a set of positive psychological resources that act together to support people in times of adversity, help them regain and keep equilibrium and enhance their wellbeing (Youssef‐Morgan and Luthans 2015). PsyCap traditionally consists of four interrelated state-like entities: Hope (striving towards goals and creating pathways to achieve these), self-efficacy (having confidence and believing in oneself), resilience (ability to successfully cope with stress and adversities), and optimism (having positive explanatory style and outlook), together comprising the ‘HERO’ model (Luthans, Youssef-Morgan, and Avolio 2015). Although PsyCap is still under-researched in language education, a number of studies have shown that these resources can play an important role in the wellbeing of language teachers across the profession (e.g. Ergün and Dewaele 2021; Ferradás et al. 2019; Freire et al. 2020; Zee and Koomen 2016). For instance, Freire et al. (2020) explored PsyCap and burnout among 1379 Spanish teachers in a variety of contexts: pre-school, primary, secondary, and vocational education. The authors found that PsyCap reduces teacher burnout, and as such, supports their wellbeing. In another study, Ferradás et al. (2019) found that teachers experiencing low PsyCap exhibited signs of job burnout, and – vice versa – those with high levels of PsyCap were found to better cope with hardships of the teaching profession.

Social capital is understood as the strength drawn from social connections and relationships (Hobfoll 2002). Research has indicated that social capital is central for individuals’ resilience, mental, and physical health (e.g. Hobfoll 2002; OECD 2001). For language teachers in particular, research has shown that aspects of social capital such as positive workplace climate, collegial relationships, and leadership support are crucial for the teachers’ wellbeing (e.g. Babic et al. 2022; Rogers 2012). In addition, language teachers’ relationships with their students can also make a positive contribution to teachers’ job satisfaction and wellbeing (e.g. Dörnyei and Murphey 2003; Penuel et al. 2009; Rajabi Gilan et al. 2013; Spilt, Koomen, and Thijs 2011). For example, Rajabi Gilan et al. (2013) explored the relationship between social capital and health-related quality of life among 375 teachers. The authors found significant positive relationships between teachers’ social capitals and their mental and physical health. Positive social relationships at work were found to have a positive influence not only for teachers but also for their students. Indeed, a study conducted by Croninger and Lee (2001) found that that teachers are an important social capital for students and that this kind of capital reduces the likelihood of school dropouts.

Human capital (Bourdieu 1986) is typically described as comprising resources such as knowledge, skills, work ability, education, and experience gained over time (Becker 1993; Luthans, Luthans, and Luthans 2004). According to the OECD (2001), human capital ‘facilitate[s] the creation of personal, social and economic well-being’ (17) and, thus, represents a key resource for everyone, including language teachers. High levels of human capital positively influence language teachers’ sense of self-efficacy, general wellbeing, and job satisfaction (Lauermann and König 2016; Tsui 2003). Ost (2014) suggests that this is especially true for teachers at the start of their teaching careers as they begin to draw on their experience and knowledge gained in the classroom. However, studies also show that increased human capital can make a positive impact on teachers’ wellbeing in a variety of contexts and across the profession (e.g. Liu, Song, and Miao 2018; Shin et al. 2021).

Finally, health capital refers to people’s physical health and wellness (Schneider-Kamp 2020). Physical health is perhaps the most important resource for people as all other pillars of wellbeing are affected by it (Howell, Kern, and Lyubomirsky 2007). Within the field of education, studies that examined health capital have typically done this in the domains of occupational stress, job satisfaction, and general wellbeing (e.g. Bogaert et al. 2014; De Simone, Cicotto, and Lampis 2016). For example, De Simone et al. (2016) found that the teachers’ workload has a direct effect on their physical symptoms and an indirect effect on their job satisfaction, as well as that job satisfaction in turn supports teachers’ physical health. Similarly, in a study conducted in 281 schools in the UK, Bowers (2004) found that stressful working conditions cause teachers to increasingly experience deterioration in both their mental and physical wellbeing. These studies further strengthen the argument that teachers’ mental and physical health are interlinked and make an impact on their teaching performance and experiences of wellbeing.

Teachers’ career trajectories

There are several models to describe teachers’ lives and professional career phases (e.g. Day et al. 2007; Fessler 1985; Huberman 1989). The most comprehensive model offered by Day et al. (2007) outlines three major teacher career phases: early-, mid-, and late-career. Each of these phases is divided into two sub-categories, comprising six divisions: Early-career (0–3 and 4–7 years of teaching experience); mid-career (8–15 and 16–23 years), and late-career phase (24–30 and over 31 years) (Day 2017). In addition to the phases in this model, we also added pre-service teachers.

Pre-service teachers are studying to become teachers. They typically experience hardships and emotional challenges as they balance the dual roles of being a student and becoming a teacher during this important life transition (Hong 2010). Such high levels of stress, in turn, can lead pre-service teachers to leave the profession even before they formally enter the workforce (Vesely, Saklofske, and Nordstokke 2014). In the UK, pre-service teacher retention has become a growing concern (Birchinall, Spendlove, and Buck 2019), where only 48% to 73% of pre-service teachers decide to stay in the profession (Department for Education 2016). This trend seems to be further exacerbated among language teachers due to the decreased popularity of learning modern languages in the UK (Department for Education 2019). Similarly, teacher attrition remains a concern for early-career teachers across the globe (Ingersoll 2012) and especially in the case of language teachers in anglophone countries (Mason 2017). Indeed, increasing number of early-career teachers decide to leave the profession within the first 5 years of teaching (Ingersoll 2012). Early-career teachers face unique professional challenges as they reconcile professional expectations and reality during the transition from training to full-time practice (Schlichte, Yssel, and Merbler 2005; Sulis et al. 2022). During this phase, teachers typically are in the process of developing their professional identity and finding their own ways of teaching, which many early-career teachers find rather stressful (Schlichte, Yssel, and Merbler 2005). Mid-career teachers have typically gained substantial teaching experience and knowledge, are settled in their schools, and have established professional relationships (Hargreaves 2005). However, this is also the phase when many teachers juggle multiple roles at home and at work, such as children or older parents in need of care (Day 2017). It is also a time marked by career stagnation (Farrell 2014; Shin et al. 2021), which leads some educators to search for new professional challenges and responsibilities (Gu and Day 2007). Together, these issues can threaten a healthy work-life balance during this phase. Finally, late-career teachers are those who have been in the profession for over 24 years. They have gained extensive experience, knowledge, and skills, which combined with secure positions and strong social bonds in the workplace means some can flourish in the final phase of their careers (Day et al. 2007). However, others report feeling tired of their professional roles and ready for retirement (Day 2017). Some late-career teachers experience physical health issues, which tend to pose challenges to their teacher motivation, commitment, and job satisfaction (Day and Gu 2009).

In sum, teachers face diverse challenges across their professional trajectories and ‘have different attitudes, skills, and behaviors at various points during their careers’ (Lynn 2002, 179). However, each phase is also accompanied by capitals that the educators can draw on to help them cope with difficulties and strengthen their wellbeing. In this study, we explore the capitals that teachers drew on to deal with challenges, stay in the profession, and thrive in their professional roles.

Methodology

Research questions and aims

This article examines the capitals employed by 58 foreign language teachers in the UK and in Austria to support their wellbeing across the career trajectory. In the UK, modern languages (such as French, German, and Spanish) are often regarded as a low priority for students (British Council 2019). This has resulted in a drop of more than 50% of students taking the GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) language courses over the past 20 years (BBC 2019). In contrast, in Austria, English is taught as a foreign language and is one of the core subjects in the national curriculum. As such, it is highly valued across the educational system (BMBFW 2021). This study seeks to answer the following research question:

RQ:

What kinds of capitals do English language teachers from Austria and modern language teachers from the UK appear to draw on as resources to support their wellbeing at different phases of their careers?

Context and participants

Twenty-eight modern language teachers working in the UK, and 30 English language teachers working in Austria participated in this study. All 58 teachers were teaching in secondary schools (female, n = 51; male, n = 7). We chose to explore settings in which English is taught as a foreign language (Austria), as well as the contexts in which English is an official language of the country (the UK). This decision was made in light of the differences in the status foreign languages occupy within these two contexts. Indeed, in Austria, English as a foreign language is regarded as a mandatory subject, while in the UK, modern languages are largely elective and are not part of the core curriculum (OFSTED 2019). As such, it can be argued that such educational policies alongside other systemic factors contribute to students’ (lack of) motivation and enthusiasm for learning a foreign language in these two countries. For instance, English, being a lingua franca, is regarded with high status, helping Austrian students to see its relevance, which in turn supports their willingness to master this language (Dalton-Puffer, Faistauer, and Vetter 2011). Another factor differentiating these two contexts refers to the existing inspection bodies in these two contexts; namely, the Quality Management System (Schulqualität Allgemeinbildung [SQA]) in Austria and Ofsted in the UK. While the Austrian teaching inspection was established to enhance teachers’ autonomy and decrease their experienced pressure and stress in schools (Kemethofer, Gustafsson, and Altrichter 2017), the Ofsted inspection body in the UK is reported as one of the major sources of stress for teachers in the UK, which negatively influences their job satisfaction and wellbeing as professionals (OFSTED 2019).

All Austrian teachers attend teacher education studies called Lehramt, while the teachers in the UK attend the Post Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE).

Participants in this study were recruited through the authors’ departmental mailing lists, social media channels, as well as personal and professional contacts of the researchers. Table 1.

Table 1. Participants’ career phase and the country in which they were teaching.

	Pre-service	Early-career	Mid-career	Late-career	Σ
UK	n=7	n=8	n=7	n=6	n=28
Austria	n=7	n=6	n=9	n=8	n=30

Research tools and procedures

Data were collected by means of in-depth semi-structured interviews, which encouraged participants to share their stories in a more conversational manner, while still following a guide to ensure comparability of the interviews (O’Leary 2017). The interview protocols covered the following topics: Teachers’ career trajectories, teaching situation, teacher identity and meaning, challenges and resources, ecologies, physical wellbeing, work-life balance, and future goals. A separate interview protocol was designed for pre-service teachers in this study, which included additional questions about their university and practicum experiences. The semi-structured interview design allowed an in-depth exploration and comparison of the participants in relation to specific contexts, career phases, and capitals they draw on to retain their positive sense of wellbeing. The interviews took place in person and online between December 2018 and June 2019. Each interview lasted around 60 minutes, which generated a corpus of approximately 500,000 words.

Ethics

This research study complied with the ethical guidelines proposed by the British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL 2021). Before data collection, ethical permission was obtained from the University of Leicester in the UK. Participants received a consent form which included information about the research project, participants’ rights and involvement, anonymisation and storage of data, and their right to withdraw at any point of the study before its publication. Furthermore, participants were given a pseudonym at the outset of the data collection procedure and all identifying markers were removed at the point of transcription.

Data analysis

Since this qualitative study encompassed an extensive dataset of 58 interviews, data were separated into career phases of the participants, to organise the transcripts and facilitate the data analysis process. Following transcription, members of the research team familiarised themselves with the data through extensive reading and memoing on a shared file, which was discussed in several team meetings. Next, the data were coded inductively, line-by-line, to allow findings to emerge from the data and to create the initial code list (Saldaña 2013). Once all interviews were coded and recoded multiple times using Atlas.ti, the team members met again to discuss emergent themes. These included the psychological, social, human, and health capitals as resources for wellbeing. In the subsequent round of coding, researchers created a code list in respect to these themes (please see Appendix), which were applied to the data. The authors met on multiple occasions and discussed any necessary adaptations, which were made to maintain coherence and ensure full coverage of the data. As such, the final code list for all the career phases encompassed 22 main codes grouped into the areas of psychological, social, human, and health capitals.

Findings

The findings are organised according to these capitals and within each section according to career phase.

Psychological capital

Pre-service teachers in this study (n = 14) were still building their psychological capital, especially in terms of gaining resilience and self-efficacy as language teachers. Sally (Austria, hereafter AT), for example, explained that she feels that she still has to acquire a set of skills before she can start teaching: ‘One thing I really miss, is that we don’t get taught enough about how to handle difficult students, or how to handle a group, or rhetoric or something like that […] I think that’s very important as a teacher’. Indeed, 11 teachers (AT, n = 6; UK, n = 5) working on developing their teaching skills and competences to feel more confident in the classroom.

As early-career teachers (AT, n = 3; UK, n = 5) progressively gained language teaching experience, their psychological capital in terms of self-efficacy and resilience also increased. Mila (UK), for example, compared her teaching at the beginning with her current experiences: ‘I got more experience, I got more confident. I think that the system is more supportive, and I am very fortunate’. Interestingly, seven participants (AT, n = 3; UK, n = 4), reported on a ‘perfectionist approach’ to their lesson planning, which was, in fact, diminishing their self-efficacy as a language teacher as well as their work-life balance and health capital by creating a negative spillover between their work and life domains.

Data showed that, by mid-career, all the teachers in this study (AT, n = 9; UK, n = 7) had accumulated psychological capital. The interviews revealed that the participants had built resilience and sense of self-efficacy in their professional roles over time as they concurrently gained human capital in and beyond the classroom. Together, these resources appeared to provide support and enhance wellbeing of all mid-career teachers. All participants reported that they had become more competent at managing their classes, workload, and stress with time. For example, Monika (AT) explained that she learned to prioritise after experiencing a negative spillover between work and non-work domains during her early career: ‘Seven years ago, I would have taken work a lot harder. With time, you can distance yourself from these things […]. You don’t take it home, you don’t carry it around with you all the time’.

During their careers, the majority of late-career teachers (AT, n = 8; UK, n = 2) built an abundance of psychological capital, which helped them deal with challenges and retain a positive sense of wellbeing over time. Birgit (AT) explained: ‘If I’m not so well prepared – I’m not, and this is something, of course, experience helps with’. Interestingly, three late-career teachers (UK) reported struggling at the end of their teaching trajectories. These teachers mentioned feeling exhausted, dissatisfied, and increasingly stressful. Eight teachers in total (AT, n = 5; UK, n = 3) reported being ready to leave the profession. Finally, five late-career teachers (AT, n = 3; UK, n = 2) mentioned that they enjoyed their teaching roles and were flourishing in this period of their professional lives. Indeed, Mabel (UK) said: ‘I’m really – I’ve been, kind of, at my happiest professional point right now’.

Social capital

All 14 pre-service teachers underscored the importance of receiving guidance from their mentors, peers, and professors at university. Specifically, in our pre-service data, relationships with peers appeared to play a prominent role for participants based in the UK. This may be due to the fact that pre-service teachers in the UK typically remain with the same cohort for the duration of their studies and, therefore, potentially create closer connections to their peers than those in Austria, who follow a modular programme (Mairitsch et al. 2021). Relationships with mentors were also perceived as particularly important across the pre-service dataset. Nataly (UK), for instance, described the relationship with her mentor: ‘I just had a bit of breakdown and [my mentor] told me some of her experiences, which actually really helped to put my own learning into perspective’.

Early-career teachers tended to seek guidance and support from social relationships within their schools (AT, n = 5; UK, n = 5). Bonnie (UK), for example, explained: ‘There are […] five new teachers this year and all of us are going through this new process together. […] It’s useful, it’s cathartic, it helps you relieve some stress’. Being at the beginning of their careers and still feeling insecure in their teaching, receiving academic and emotional support from and feeling appreciated by their colleagues was an important source of strength for these teachers.

For mid-career teachers in both countries, the focus has shifted from predominantly professional settings to juggling home and work domains. While increasing domestic (e.g. taking care of their children and, in some cases, elderly parents) and professional (e.g. taking a new role at the school) obligations caused additional stress for most mid-career teachers (AT, n = 8; UK, n = 7), at the same time, their social capital – their families and friends – represented a particular source of psychological strength and support. For example, Elena (AT) said her family became more important to her as she got older and gave her a sense of joy and stability.

Finally, all late-career teachers reported that one of the reasons they remained in the profession was their social capital, in particular their work and private relationships, which also appeared to positively influence their psychological capital. The support they received in their workplaces from head teachers, colleagues, and students exerted a positive effect on their psychological resources, such as job satisfaction. Melanie (AT), for instance, explained: ‘School is very important to me, and of course, being here for such a long time also has the result that you have got most of your friends here because you have spent so much time together’.

Human capital

Pre-service teachers were naturally still building their human capitals in terms of developing their subject knowledge and teaching skills as they learned how to implement the theoretical knowledge into their practical teaching. Lea (UK) provided a good example of such experience: ‘I think a lot of things that I did in [university] were very helpful and made me who I am today’. Teachers who felt prepared for in-class teaching (AT, n = 5; UK, n = 5) experienced higher psychological capital as their self-efficacy and belief in themselves gradually grew with experience in training and practica.

Early-career teachers were also still in the process of building their human capital as they learned from their practice. Through their experiences in actual classrooms, all participants reported having progressively acquired practical knowledge and teaching skills, helping them face the initial challenges of teaching. Gaining teaching experience supported the building of psychological capital in terms of increased self-efficacy and confidence as a language teacher. Anja (AT) reported: ‘I think practice just helps. Because I already got better. I already can stand there and be firm and stern’.

Although mid-career teachers have already gained considerable experience and knowledge as language professionals, many (AT, n = 7; UK, n = 6) reported having additional roles at work, such as being a headteacher, writing curricula, and leading a CLIL team. As such, they were still in the process of further developing their human capitals in new domains. Eight teachers (AT, n = 4; UK, n = 4) highlighted that having additional roles gave them a sense of accomplishment and made them feel proud, which speaks of their accrued human and psychological capitals, despite the additional stress they also represented.

Due to the decades of teaching experience, all late-career teachers in this study (AT, n = 8; UK, n = 6) reported having built their human capital in terms of extensive knowledge and skills as language professionals, which they could draw on in the final phase of their careers to manage diverse situations. These teachers started feeling very confident about their teaching and feeling prepared for any possible situations. For example, George (UK) explained: ‘I’ve got a lot of experience and I’ve dealt with lots of different things and situations. I feel pretty well equipped for anything now’.

Health capital

All pre-service teachers reported being aware of the importance of taking care of their health; however, they struggled to do so due to heavy workloads at school and university, and a lack of time. Maya (AT), for instance, explained: ‘Last semester I definitely came to my limit and I just got very ill. I just wasn’t happy and work suffers if you’re doing too much, and I was forgetting the simplest but most important things’. She added that she tried to recover her physical resources by exercising regularly and having routines. The data also revealed that five participants (AT, n = 3; UK = 2) experienced insomnia due to stress and reported on their health resources getting depleted. All the teachers in this career phase evinced growing awareness of the importance of health capital for their wellbeing and were (AT, n = 5; UK = 5) consciously working on building up this resource to protect their wellbeing.

The early-career phase was also characterised by a progressive realisation of the importance of their health capital for their wellbeing. During their first years of teaching, due to the increased stress at work, early-career teachers (AT, n = 5; UK, n = 5) become aware of the need to protect their mental and physical wellbeing. For example, Christina (AT) explained: ‘My body told me “No more!”, because otherwise I couldn’t handle it anymore’. She added that this was the point when she started taking conscious care of her physical health. Similarly, other early-career teachers (AT, n = 5; UK, n = 5) reported on beginning to implement self-regulation strategies to sustain their health, such as setting boundaries between their personal and professional life domains or engaging in physical activities.

Mid-career teachers reported on already being aware of the importance of having resources for managing not only their physical health but also the demands of the teaching profession. The majority of the participants (AT, n = 7; UK, n = 6) emphasised the importance of regular physical activities and investing in healthy lifestyles to counter stress. Theresa (AT) mentioned: ‘Especially as a teacher, you have to be healthy in any way. If you are not healthy, you are weak, and the pupils feel when you are weak’.

All the late-career teachers in this study also explicitly mentioned taking conscious care of their physical wellbeing and bolstering their health capital by doing sports such as yoga, running, going to the gym, pursuing a healthy diet, and trying to get enough sleep. They all showed an awareness of the importance of nurturing one’s physical capital and shared their concern that if they fail, that they will not be able to handle physical and mental stress in the future. Birgit (AT), for example, offered the following advice to colleagues across the profession: ‘Think of your health first, this is something which life teaches you, so think of your health far more seriously, think of your body, think of yourself more seriously’.

Discussion

This article reports on the capitals 58 language teachers drew on to manage their stress and support their wellbeing at different phases of their careers. The interview data revealed that psychological, social, human, and health capitals emerged as key resources sustaining language teacher wellbeing across their professional trajectories.

Taking the capitals’ perspective proved a useful lens to gain a deeper understanding of the positive resources teachers have at their disposal, draw on, and develop over time to nurture their wellbeing.

Psychological capital, according to the literature (e.g. Luthans and Youssef-Morgan 2004, 2017), helps individuals to cope with stress and adversity and to maintain their positive sense of wellbeing. This is perhaps most salient among mid- and late-career teachers in this study, who displayed an abundance of psychological resources accumulated across time and experience. However, early-career, and particularly pre-service teachers, were still building their psychological capitals by slowly establishing their sense of self-efficacy as language educators, as well as their resilience to bounce back from the initial challenges they faced. Studies show that self-efficacy (e.g. Tschannen-Moran and Hoy 2007) and resilience (Tait 2008) play a crucial role for teachers across their careers (Day 2017), and these would be important resources to seek to enhance where possible.

Social capital emerged as a crucial resource for all teachers in this study. However, the kind of social resources that best supported teachers’ wellbeing changed throughout the career trajectory; moving from professional (pre-service and early career) to personal (mid-career), to both for late-career teachers. Indeed, a body of research (e.g. Kelchtermans 2019; Liou et al. 2017) has shown the centrality of support stemming from professional relationships for early-career teachers. For example, in a study on pre-service teachers in the US context, Liou et al. (2017) found that peer trust and social ties at their universities positively influenced their participants. Due to increasing responsibilities and workload during the mid-career phase, teachers in this study sought support mainly from their personal relationships – their families and friends which resonates with others research (Day and Gu 2010). Finally, well-established personal and professional relationships played an important role for late-career teachers, particularly for those who struggled in this phase.

Building human capital in terms of gained knowledge, skills, and experience proved central for experiencing wellbeing at different career phases. Akin to the psychological capital, accumulated human resources provide strength and support to individuals with abundance of knowledge and experience in their professional fields (e.g. Tschannen-Moran and Hoy 2007). In the current study, this was found to be true for mid- and late-career teachers, while early-career, and even more so pre-service teachers, still did not have developed human capital to draw on but were conscious of making efforts to build it. Our findings align with current research on teacher effectiveness which show that early-career teachers improve with growing experiences, placing importance on the development of human capital for their performance and job satisfaction (Lauermann and König 2016; Ost 2014; Tsui 2003).

Another important resource across all the career phases was teachers’ health capital (Campbell and Uusimaki 2006). While teachers at all career phases understood the importance of physical health, not all of them proactively worked on replenishing this resource. For example, pre-service teachers, due to their dual workload at the university and practice, reported on a perceived lack of time to take active care of their physical wellbeing. It seems that the awareness of the importance of looking after one’s health increased with age. This study evinces the centrality of physical health for one’s wellbeing (e.g. Howell, Kern, and Lyubomirsky 2007; Schneider-Kamp 2020), which all stakeholders in education should consciously foster for themselves and others.

This study’s findings also suggest that capitals are interrelated and work in synergy to support the teachers’ wellbeing. Teachers in this study who gained knowledge, skills, and experiences had a greater sense of self-efficacy and belief in themselves as language professionals (Carrillo and Flores 2018; Zee and Koomen 2016) connecting their human and psychological capitals. Furthermore, relying on social connections at the workplace to build one’s human as well as psychological capital was witnessed across the data. A study by, for example, Slåtten et al. (2019) found that these two – human and social capitals – are symbiotic and are positively linked to each other. Research has repeatedly shown that social connections in terms of supportive colleagues, head teachers, and students positively influence teachers’ psychological capital (e.g. Çimen and Özgan 2018) and wellbeing (Babic et al. 2022).

This study also drew out contextual factors that played a role in teachers’ ability to accrue and draw on their capitals for wellbeing. For instance, the inspection body in the UK, Ofsted, was cited as a persistent source of stress for teachers in all career phases. While, in Austria, inspection bodies in this form do not exist, the majority of the teachers reported facing high levels of stress due to the final school-leaving examination, Matura (Hofstadler et al. 2021). As such, even though these contextual factors differ in the two countries, both have systemic roots, suggesting that stressors can stem from different layers in the ecology of the profession – the immediate classroom, institutional or national policies, and structural conditions. Therefore, raising awareness about possible sources of negativity and dissatisfaction across the profession is more important than ever to attend to teachers’ job satisfaction, quality of teaching and their wellbeing without placing all the responsibility for wellbeing onto individual educators.

In sum, exploring capitals as resources for wellbeing and understanding the interconnections between these and the contexts teachers work in can give a holistic perspective on the different resources sustaining the wellbeing of teachers across their career spans. Combining the career trajectory perspective with a capitals lens enables us to see the accumulation and depletion of capitals at various stages of the teachers’ professional lives as they gain experience, build social networks, become more confident, gain awareness of the importance of health, and seek to balance personal and professional demands and stressors.

Conclusion

This study’s findings show the importance of understanding the interplay between different kinds of capitals at different career phases that act together to support teachers and their wellbeing in the face of adversities and stress. The key resources for teachers’ wellbeing across time in this study include teachers’ social, psychological, human, and health capitals.

This article gives unique insights into the wellbeing of language teachers across the professional trajectory and offers implications for teacher education, in-service training, school leadership, and policy-makers that stretch beyond the context of the two countries in this study. In particular, challenges relevant in each of the career phase could already be addressed in teacher training programmes in order to address the challenges pre-service teachers experience, but also to prepare them for the decades’ long profession. Moreover, capitals that teachers draw on at various points in their personal and professional lives – as revealed in this study – could be explicitly enhanced and supported by school leadership across the career trajectory. For instance, teachers could be given opportunities to build their social networks in school with social events, opportunities for coffee breaks together, or the chance to team teacher for those who would like to.

The limitations of this study are context-related as the participants come from two developed countries and were all high-school teachers. Had the teachers come from different language and socio-economic backgrounds and were they working in different levels of the education system, it is likely we would have found different capitals and stressors. Moreover, our participants are all volunteers, implying the sample was comprised of those who were willing and comfortable to discuss their wellbeing. It would be interesting to explore many of these issues with those who have left the profession to understand their perspective on the stressors and factors affecting their wellbeing and reasons for their attrition.

Given that teaching has been rated as one of the most stressful professions (Johnson et al. 2005), leading to large numbers of teachers at different career phases leaving the profession permanently (Hong 2010; Ingersoll 2012), it is vitally important that administrators and school leadership fully understand how to support teachers at different career phases. Enabling teachers to become aware of their own resources can empower them with skills to protect and develop their wellbeing in the long term. Equally, it is essential that institutional heads and leadership understand the challenges threatening teacher wellbeing as well as the resources maintaining in order to be able to provide practical and relevant support to teachers across their careers. Addressing teacher wellbeing requires both individual and systemic interventions ideally personalised to the unique challenges and capitals of individual teachers at various stages of their professional lives.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [project number: P 31261-G29].

Notes on contributors

Sonja Babic

Sonja Babic is a post-doc research assistant at the University of Graz in Austria and is looking into clusters of resources – capitals – that support language teachers’ and teacher educators’ wellbeing. She is also a project deputy on an Erasmus+ funded project entitled “Global Citizenship and Multilingual Competences (GCMC)” as of September 2020. Sonja is teaching pre-service English teachers at the University of Graz. She is a certified TESOL teacher and was teaching English as a foreign language before pursuing her academic positions. Her interests lie in the psychology of language learning and teaching, teacher wellbeing, positive psychology, positive language education, and global skills and citizenship.

Astrid Mairitsch

Astrid Mairitsch is currently working as a Pre-doc research assistant at the University of Graz on the FWF- funded project “The Psychological Capital of Foreign Language Teachers”. Alongside this project, she is pursuing her PhD aimed at exploring how teachers in Austria are portrayed in Austrian newspapers, using critical discourse analysis. She is also a lecturer at the department of Psychology and Philosophy at the University of Graz. Her research interests lie in (Positive) Psychology, psychology of language learning and teaching, wellbeing, and (language) teacher status.

Sarah Mercer

Sarah Mercer is Professor of Foreign Language Teaching at the University of Graz, Austria, where she is Head of ELT methodology. Her research interests include all aspects of the psychology surrounding the foreign language learning experience. She is the author, co-author and co-editor of several books in this area including, ‘Towards an Understanding of Language Learner Self-Concept’, ‘Psychology for Language Learning’, ‘Multiple Perspectives on the Self’ in SLA’, ‘New Directions in Language Learning Psychology’, ‘Positive Psychology in SLA’, ‘Exploring Psychology for Language Teachers’ (Winner of the IH Ben Warren Prize), ‘Language Teacher Psychology’, ‘Engaging Language Learners in Contemporary Classrooms’, and ‘Teacher Wellbeing’. She has published around 150 book chapters and journal articles. She has served as Principal Investigator on several funded research projects and works on the editorial board of various journals, was co-editor of the journal System for several years, is co-editor of Multilingual Matters’ Psychology of Language Learning and Teaching book series, is currently vice-president of the International Association for the Psychology of Language Learning (IAPLL).

Giulia Sulis

Giulia Sulis is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Graz working on the FWF-funded project entitled “The psychological capital of foreign language teachers”. She graduated from the University of Groningen with a Master’s in Applied Linguistics and pursued her PhD in Linguistics and English Language at Lancaster University. Her PhD project examined dynamic variability in L2 motivation and four subsets of learner engagement (i.e. behavioural, cognitive, emotional and social) over the course of the L2 lesson and throughout the academic year, and explored the interrelationship between the two constructs. Alongside her PhD, she worked as Associate Lecturer in Literacy and Education and as a tutor of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) at Lancaster University. Her research interests lie in the psychology of language learning and teaching. Currently, her research focuses on teacher wellbeing, L2 motivation and engagement, and Willingness to Communicate (WTC).

Jim King

Jim King is Programme Director of MA Applied Linguistics and TESOL courses at the University of Leicester, UK. Prior to gaining a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Nottingham, he taught English and trained language teachers in various countries around the world, including stints in Poland, Hungary, Italy, Japan and Australia. Jim’s research interests centre on situated psychological aspects of foreign language education, and he has led international collaborative research projects focusing on such issues as learner reticence, foreign language anxiety and the role that emotion regulation plays in language teachers’ professional practice. His books include Silence in the Second Language Classroom (2013) and The Dynamic Interplay Between Context and the Language Learner (2015) (both published by Palgrave Macmillan). Publications in the pipeline include Language Teaching: An Emotional Rollercoaster (co-edited with Dr Christina Gkonou and Professor Jean-Marc Dewaele) due to appear in 2019.

Appendix

Table A1. Codes list from Atlas.Ti.

Codes	Themes
Self-confidence Perseverance Goal orientation Resilience Optimism Job satisfaction	Psychological capital
Relationship_friends Relationship_family Relationship_partner Relationship_colleagues Relationship_students Relationship_leadership	Social capital
Accomplishments Gaining experience Practicum Attending professional events Professional growth	Human capital
Physical health_nutrition Physical health_sleep Physical health_exercise Physical health_illness Experiencing stress	Health capital