This study aims to understand teacher emotions through interviewing 53 primary teachers in Hong Kong and Mainland China. Content analysis was employed to analyze the data. Teachers reported 68 different types of emotions which decreases as distance from the teachers increases at the five nested ecological system – microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macro-system, and chronosystem. Teachers mentioned the most emotions at the microsystem level (50 emotions), followed by the exosystem (36), the mesosystem (30), the macrosystem (10), and the chronosystem (seven) levels. These emotions comprised 34 positive emotions (e.g., happiness, caring, pride) and 34 negative emotions (e.g., pressure, sadness, worry). Attention should be paid to the high proportion (50%) of negative emotions described by Hong Kong and Mainland China teachers. Findings may help teachers to understand how to regulate their emotions but also provide strong references for teacher education, teaching, and teacher lives.
[Copyright © 2017 James Nicholas Publishers.]

This article reports the results of a qualitative study investigating the experiences of five former English language teachers in Hong Kong during their initial years of full-time teaching and the reasons for their permanent departure from the profession. Guided by a theory of teacher identity construction, the study employed a discourse analytic approach to understand the participants’ perceptions of their professional identity construction in discourse and practice. The results of in-depth interviews provide detailed descriptions of the ways in which the former teachers perceived the constraints and enablements to their professional identity construction within the context of their ultimate decision to leave the teaching profession. The findings problematise rigid divisions between different types of teachers and suggest the need to establish new spaces for identity construction that allow for the meshing of different teacher identities.
[Copyright © 2016 Taylor & Francis.]

The aims of the study were to examine the association between occupational PA and overall PA level of school teachers, and to compare the occupational PA level of school teachers engaged in PAs of a different nature at work (PE and non-PE teacher) in Hong Kong. Seventy-one elementary school teachers were assessed for three-day PA levels using step pedometers. Results indicated that occupational PA significantly predicted overall daily PA level. PE teachers were reported to have higher step counts during working hours compared with non-PE teachers. In addition, the occupational PA level of teaching profession is not reported to be at low level. The promotion of PA, both leisure and occupational, should be emphasized to the teaching profession.
[Copyright © 2012 International Journal of Sport & Health Science.]

教師工作量過多會引致職業壓力，從而影響教師個人的心理健康和教學效能。在歐美和台灣地區已有不少的研究，克拉克 (Clark, 1980) 教師職業壓力因素研究中，指出工作負荷過重是五項因素之一。台灣師範大學輔導中心於八四年的調查，亦發現工作負荷是引致教師壓力的四個因素之一。然而在香港卻欠缺同類的研究，為了全面了解本港小學教師工作情況，探討工作量對教師個人心理的影響，本會向全港小學發出問卷，用隨機抽樣方法選出兩位行政人員及四位教師進行調查。與此同時，是項研究亦會探討近年香港小學的教育改革對教師的工作量和教育質量的影響，以便初步評估各項改革的成效。

The teaching profession has been found as one of the stressful occupations. While numerous research has shown that the school culture contribute to teaching effectiveness and teachers' well-being, it mainly focuses on teachers from the primary or secondary levels of education. Very little attention has been paid to kindergarten teachers despite that preschool education is considered as crucial foundation of young childrenûs learning development. This research examined the relationships between psychosocial work environment of kindergartens and teachersû mental health in Hong Kong. 136 kindergarten teachers were recruited and surveyed on their perceived school culture (School Culture Survey) and general mental health (GHQ-12). Results showed that teachers' perceived school culture correlated negatively with their mental health complaints such as insomnia and tension problems. In other words, teachers who worked in more favourable psychosocial work environment had less mental health complaints than those teachers who worked in less favourable environment. Furthermore, while a significant portion of kindergarten teachers displayed moderate to severe mental health complaints, regression analysis indicated that the school culture domain of collegial support, among other domains such as professional development and learning partnership, contributed significantly and uniquely to teachers' mental health complaints. The implications of developing and sustaining a whole school culture of collegial support in kindergartens are discussed.

AIMS: This study aims to describe the health-related quality of life of both in-service and pre-service teachers who engaged in the teacher education of the Hong Kong Early Childhood Education (HKECE) programme. The research questions are: (a) What is the health-related quality of life of ECE teachers in Hong Kong? (b) Are there differences between ECE teachers in Hong Kong and those in other South-East Asian Chinese communities? (c) What demographic factors are related to quality of life of ECE teachers? METHODS: The sample comprised 1,026 ECE teachers, including 834 in-service and 192 pre-service teachers of early childhood education. Participants completed the self-administered Chinese version of the Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQOL) (SF-36) questionnaire. The HRQOL has been validated for use with the Chinese communities in Hong Kong, China, Singapore and Taiwan. Mean values of the HRQOL main scale and subscales for this sample were compared against pervious similar samples in other Asian countries. Subgroups (according to age, housing-related socio-economic status, and experience of illness/diseases) were compared on the HRQOL main scale and subscales using the methods of MANOVA and ANOVA. RESULTS: The results suggest that the HKECE teachers were found to have not only poor self-rated health-related quality of life, but also low quality of life compared to four other Chinese samples in South East Asian communities that were reported in the literature. Analysis showed that in-service teachers had significantly poorer quality of life than pre-service teachers, and old teachers tended to have worse quality of life than their young colleagues. Significant differences were also found in socio-economic status and experience of illness/disease. CONCLUSIONS: Hong Kong healthcare and education policy makers should aware of the phenomenon that some ECE teachers are in a serious state of ill health, especially those in-service teachers who have families, having low socio-economic

While kindergarten teachers have shown resilience under adverse work environment, scarce empirical research has examined these teachers’ resilient protective factors, namely hardiness and optimism. The study had two aims. First, it examined the correlation relationships among variables of hardiness, optimism, self-esteem, and mental health complaints. Second, it testified the mediating effect of hardiness on optimism. Inservice kindergarten teachers were invited to participate in the study as voluntary convenient samplings. They were asked to complete four inventories anonymously to enhance confidentiality and their willingness to participate. Eventually, 64 out of 104 teachers participated and returned the inventories. Results showed that both hardiness and optimism correlated positively with self-esteem but negatively with mental health complaints. While hardiness mediated the effects of optimism, teachers’ commitment (a subscale of hardiness scale) appeared to predict consistently their self-esteem and mental health complaints. Implications of rethinking optimism and promoting teachers’ resilience through hardiness training are discussed.

While studies consistently showed that a person’s subjective well-being (SWB) was related to his/her job performances, health, and adaptation, few research examined Hong Kong kindergarten teachers’ SWB in relation to their demographics. The purpose of study was to address this issue by examining the relationships of teachers’ job satisfaction, self-esteem, and mental health complaints (representing SWB) to their demographic characteristics. 371 in-service teachers participated voluntarily as convenient sample by self-rating on the inventories, including the Job Satisfaction Survey, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Inventory, and the General Health Questionaire-12. Results showed that the SWB variables showed significant correlations with the majority of demographic factors: the factors of age, marital status, years of teaching, and rank in school correlated with all SWB variables. Among all demographics, the “rank in school” factor was the most consistent factor in associating with all SWB variables. In addition, there were group differences in SWB by teachers’ age, working experiences, school ranks, school type, and marital statuses. The age group (46-50) displayed the highest job satisfaction, whereas another age group (26-30) showed the lowest job satisfaction. Teachers with teaching experiences longer than 21 years had significantly higher job satisfactions than those with 6-10 years and 11-15 years of experiences. Of all ranks in kindergartens, the principals displayed the highest job satisfaction. Teachers worked in non-profit-making kindergartens showed consistently more favourable job satisfaction and perceived work environment than teachers in profit-making kindergartens. Furthermore, married teachers indicated significantly higher self-esteem than singled teachers. Implications of findings to teachers’ development were discussed.

Background: Kindergarten education in Hong Kong serves children aged 32–68 months. However, there is no extant scale that measures kindergarten teachers’ perceived work environment, an important influence on their well-being. Aims: To develop a new instrument, the Teachers’ Perceived Work Environment (TPWE) scale, and to assess whether kindergarten teachers with higher TPWE ratings had higher scores for job satisfaction, self-esteem and mental health. Methods: A 25-item rating scale was developed and used with a sample of in-service kindergarten teachers. Their perceived work environment was represented by five factors (ergonomics, staffing, teaching space, work hours and social space). These teachers also completed three well-being inventories: the Job Satisfaction Survey, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Inventory and the General Health Questionnaire-12. In a second stage, a new sample of in-service kindergarten teachers was used to cross-validate the findings from the earlier assessment. Results: In the first sample of 141 teachers and the second of 125, social space, staffing and work hours were associated with job satisfaction, while ergonomics was a significant negative predictor of mental health complaints. Conclusions: The TPWE exhibited satisfactory reliability and validity. Some factors were differentially associated with specific types of well-being. The results may inform future studies of the working conditions of kindergarten teachers.
[Copyright © 2015 The Author.]