Author(s)

Einar M. Skaalvik^1,2, Sidsel Skaalvik²

¹NTNU Social Research, Trondheim, Norway.
²Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway.

This qualitative interview study explored primary and middle school teachers’ perceptions of job demands, how they responded to the demands, and which strategies they used to cope with the demands. The participating teachers reported multiple demands, resulting in high levels of stress and emotional exhaustion. Several of the demands could be traced back to structural and organizational conditions at the schools. The analyses also showed that the teachers used five main strategies to cope with the demands: hard working strategies, recovering strategies, reducing the workload strategies, job crafting strategies, and help seeking strategies.

Teacher Stress, Job Demands, Coping Strategies

Skaalvik, E. and Skaalvik, S. (2021) Teacher Stress and Coping Strategies—The Struggle to Stay in Control. Creative Education, 12, 1273-1295. doi: 10.4236/ce.2021.126096.