Conflicts in PK-12 Schools: Causes, Consequences and Management

Abstract

This book chapter will focus on exploring the relationships between conflict management, communication, burnout, organizational support and effective strategies to cope with workplace stress in PK-12 school districts. The majority of work on conflict management focuses on corporations and for-profit organizations. However, teachers in PK-12 school districts are an important component of a country’s workforce. This book chapter would discuss empirical research work that has examined these constructs from the teacher’s perspective who are working in PK-12 school districts. Specifically, the relationships between conflict management, communication, burnout, organizational and coworker support will be examined. The strategies that teachers utilize to cope with stress and burnout will be discussed.

1. Introduction

The majority of work on conflict management focuses on corporations and for-profit organizations. However, teachers in PK-12 school districts are an important component of a country’s workforce. This chapter will focus on exploring empirical research on the relationships between conflict management, and the effective strategies to cope with workplace burnout and stress in teachers working within PK-12 school districts.

2. Causes of conflict in organizations

“Conflict is a type of behavior which occurs when two or more parties are in opposition or in battle as a result of a perceived relative deprivation from the activities of or interaction with another person or group” ([1], p. 180). It usually does not have a detrimental influence on the individuals when handled objectively and in a timely manner but it can lead to disruption in communication that impact the work efficiency when not addressed appropriately. There are several different causes of conflict. One of the most common causes of conflict is “means utilization.” It is the situation where the disparate perspectives and viewpoints of how and who would utilize the resources leads to conflicts. Another common cause of conflict is “shared dependence on limited resources.” In this situation, there are several agendas and priorities that are put forth by individuals and/or departments to obtain the resources. Shared dependence leads to competition for obtaining the most resources which eventually results in conflicts. “Scheduling problems is another source of conflict where new work norms and policies causes a disruption in existing standards and rules which may not be conducive and/or hard to adopt by employees (e.g., COVID-19 pandemic). It may lead to complaints, feeling of anxiety, stress, and resentment which are the main predecessors for burnout, mental health issues, and conflict [1]. Conflict can be social (disagreement with others in the workplace during public interactions), cognitive (emotional anxiety when person feels that their views are not acknowledged and valued and/or perceptions of unfair treatment), political (failure to reach consensus and form potential collaborations) or structural (ambiguity in job roles and responsibilities). The type of conflict and its source should be examined to explain the process of how the conflict started and proliferated in the workplace [2]. Conflicts can also exist in subsystems—“functional (e.g., competing priorities, incompatible job responsibilities-role conflict), social (feelings of anxiety, hostility, tension), informational (disagreement between parties and their choices), and political (inflexible demands by parties which inhibits formation of potential collaborations)” ([2], pp. 27–28).

3. Causes of conflicts in schools

Conflict is a common phenomenon that occurs in every organization including PK-12 schools. It may arise due to a variety of reasons which involves disagreement, and incompatibility between teacher-teacher, teacher-student, teacher-parent, and/or teacher-supervisor [3, 4], school climate [5], and other individual and contextual-level factors [6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]. The most common sources of conflict in PK-12 schools are the distribution of work load and resources, teacher-student relationship, teacher-parent interaction, classroom management, teaching methods, assessment practices, role conflict where the jobs responsibilities are not clearly delineated, power struggle with coworkers and superiors, individual attitudes, and political issues [13, 14, 15]. Conflicts leads to disruption or cessation of individual, interpersonal and organizational work activities which negatively influences the productivity at micro and macro level of school environment. Conflicts are inevitable in schools as there is constant interaction between teachers, students, parents, and administration. Hence, it is essential to comprehend the root cause and dynamics of conflict in an appropriate and timely manner which would help to mitigate the negative results in schools and also to establish benchmarks to improve school’s effectiveness [16, 17, 18, 19].

4. Consequences of conflicts in schools

The study conducted by Ertürk [20] provided the positive and negative results of conflicts. The most common negative effects of conflict at the individual-level are “weariness, fatigue, burnout, reluctance to do work, reduced productivity and performance, decreased organizational commitment, stress and fatigue.” The common interpersonal effects of conflict are “difficulty in communication, unwillingness to collaborate and share, and reluctance to talk.” The negative results of conflict at the organizational level are increase in “negative and unproductive behaviors at workplace, formation of groups based on pessimistic ideologies, deterioration of school climate, and decrease in collaboration and teamwork” (p. 258). The positive consequences of conflict at the individual-level are “increase in productivity, resolution of misunderstandings, acknowledging different views, and learning from others”. At the organizational-level, the results could be “development of new ideas and leadership role, and increase in the democratic process” (p. 259). The most common consequences of conflict are “weariness and fatigue, burnout, reluctance to do work, reduced productivity and performance, decreased organizational commitment, stress and anxiety, isolation, unhappiness, cynicism, decrease in motivation, reluctance to come to the school, desire to get away from the school, ethical behaviors’ starting to disappear, retreat and anger are the individual negative effects of conflicts” ([20], p. 263). Role conflict and role ambiguity are the two aspects of role stress which is commonly encountered by teachers. Role conflict occurs when the job responsibilities are convoluted and a discrepancy exists between the expectations and employee perspective. Role ambiguity occurs when there is scarce (inadequate and incomplete) availability of accurate information that is needed to effectively accomplish the assigned work responsibilities.

This section would focus primarily on teacher burnout and stress as these are the most commonly encountered consequences of conflict that has been widely examined in the empirical research literature. “Burnout is the combination of the inability and unwillingness to spend the necessary effort at work for proper task completion” [21]. It causes emotional fatigue, depersonalization and lack of personal achievement [22] Burnout is expressed through three dimensions-exhaustion, cynicism, and lack of professional efficacy [23]. Burnout and stress have been attributed to high teacher attrition in school district. Hence, it is important to review empirical research and the role of constructs that influence teacher burnout and stress to comprehend the context and sources of conflict that occur in schools. There are a few review studies that were conducted on burnout in special education teachers [24, 25, 26, 27, 28]. The synthesis of Brunsting et al. [24] reviewed research articles on teacher burnout from 1979 to 2013. The study showed that emotional regulation and stress management were the key constructs that reduced burnout. The school-level factors of role conflict, role ambiguity, and support from the administration were also predictive of teacher burnout. Park and Shin [26] divided burnout into three domains-emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment. The influence of student (e.g., behavior problems, class size, socio-economic status), teacher (demographics, self-efficacy, stress coping strategies), and school related variables (workplace obstacles, support from leadership and coworkers, emotional experience in workplace, availability of resources) on the three domains were assessed separately. The protective effects of self-efficacy, personal accomplishment, job satisfaction (teacher-level variables) from emotional exhaustion was consistently seen in all the reviewed studies. Depersonalization was greater when there were higher levels of coping, self-efficacy and teaching experience. In terms of school-related variables, a higher level of support from school personnel and emotional experience led to higher levels of personal accomplishment. These school-level variables also had protective effects from emotional exhaustion, and burnout. An increase in workplace obstacles led to greater depersonalization.

The review by Wisniewski and Gargiulo [27] examined mediating variables that influenced teacher burnout. The results showed that clarity in the communication of roles and responsibilities reduced burnout. Furthermore, interactions with coworkers and other school personnel and stress conditions in classrooms (student’s behavioral and emotional issues) impacted burnout in teachers. A literature review was conducted by Konukman et al. [10] on teachers who had both coaching and instructional responsibilities. The review explored the influence of role conflict on burnout and stress in physical education teachers. The study showed that the dual responsibilities of teaching and coaching in terms of time requirements, instructional needs, and motivation are important factors that impact burnout and stress in physical education teachers. A systematic review was conducted by Nwoko et al. [29] in which four factors influenced teacher’s occupational well-being and helped them to manage conflicts. These factors were (1) personal teacher capabilities (resilience, self-efficacy, autonomy, and coping strategies); (2) socio-emotional intelligence (emotional competence, training opportunities, and other supportive work relationships); (3) personal responses (workload and work conditions included burnout, fatigue, exhaustion, stress, unrealistic expectations, stress, bureaucracy, and exclusion from decisions); (4) relational factors (student misconduct, misunderstandings with parents and coworkers, and perceived lack of support from the school management system)” (pp. 11–12).

The systematic review conducted by Mijakoski et al. [30] explored the determinants of burnout in longitudinal studies. The quantitative synthesis mainly revolved around emotional exhaustion that occurred due to burnout. There were four primary determinants identified in the study that were categorized to have either a detrimental or protective effect from conflicts. These four determinants were “conflicts with coworkers, emotional strain, parent criticism, and obstacles from parents or students” (p. 5). Conflict arising from any source had a negative relationship with emotional exhaustion. Conflicts can be managed through any type of help or endorsement in the form of assistance through resources, information and/or emotion received from coworkers, supervisor or organization, and community. The presence of social integration, social support, and high-quality relationships in the workplace has a protective effect from conflicts. Another important source of conflicts can also arise from individual characteristics that consists of emotional dissonance, depersonalization, cynicism, teacher’s self-efficacy in student behavior management, neuroticism (negative feelings, such as anxiety, anger, depression, frustration), and job satisfaction. Teacher self-efficacy and job satisfaction had a negative relationship with conflict. Organizational context also has an important role to play in conflict. It comprises of “time pressure, classroom disruption, perceived collective exhaustion, perceived collective cynicism, workload stressors, technical obstacles, effective class management, work climate (pressure), supportive school climate, and collective teacher efficacy” (p. 5). Overall, the systematic review of studies showed that the quality of relationships in the workplace, social integration, individual-level behavioral traits, and organizational context (climate) influenced the nature and intensity of conflicts which can lead to stress and burnout in teachers.

The empirical literature on teacher stress and burnout that can arise due to conflicts at workplace discusses the role of fairness and organizational justice. It is the extent to which employees feel that they are fairly treated at their workplace. According to Colquitt [31], workplace justice is perceived based on the fair allocation of resources (distributive justice), procedures used to make decisions usually related to hiring, promotion, pay/benefits (procedural justice), treatment from coworkers and superiors (interactional justice), and information shared within the organization (informational justice). Conflicts arises when teachers see a mismatch between the resources, decisions, treatment, and/or information they receive from the school administration. This discrepancy between teacher expectations (what they deserve) and the actual outcome (what they receive) raises stress and burnout due to the conflicts. Adeyemi [32] showed that insufficient resources and facilities for teachers and students can be a source of conflicts which negatively influenced academic achievement. Ozgan [33] conducted a study to investigate the strategies of conflict management in the context of fairness in schools, teacher’s commitment and confidence and their evaluation of school administrator or principal. The results showed that teacher’s who had higher perceived scores on organizational justice, strategies of conflict management, and commitment, had greater level of confidence and gave higher evaluation scores to the school principal. Hoy and Tarter [4] demonstrated that “principal is the single most important person in developing a sense of organizational justice in school. The principal of the school is much more important than the faculty in creating a just and fair school at least with respect to professional interactions” (p. 257). The authors also noted that trust in the coworkers is also an important factor to develop perceptions of workplace fairness. Sehgal and Verma [34] showed that the three forms of justice (interactional, procedural, and distributive) is positively correlated with organizational commitment and negatively correlated with occupational stress. Social exchange theory explains that effort directed in the workplace is closely tied to the expected rewards. So, fairness perceptions of the rewards received based on the effort exerted by an employee acts as a protective buffer from conflicts, stress and burnout [35]. Several other studies demonstrate the positive relationships between organizational justice. Job satisfaction, school climate [36], and commitment [37]. Capone and Petrillo [36] developed a self-report questionnaire of organizational justice index to measure perceptions of teacher fairness. The questionnaire can be used to evaluate the organization issues that lead to feelings of unfairness by teachers and to develop relevant interventions and strategies to fix the issues related to organizational problems that lead to perception of unfairness in the workplace. Organizational fairness has negative associations with burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and lack of personal accomplishment—[38]), stress [39].

5. School climate and conflict management

The literature on conflicts in school districts have explored the role of school climate or school culture in the form of support provided to teachers from principals, colleagues, and resources to manage conflicts and stress. School climate has been defined in several different ways in the research literature. In general, school climate refers to the “quality and characteristics of school life, based on the patterns people experience in that life, and it reflects standards, goals, values, interpersonal relationships, the practice of teaching and learning, and the structure of the organization [40]”. The various aspects of school climate include (but not limited to) work responsibilities, assessment and teaching practices, teacher-student and teacher-parent relationships (pupil discipline), teacher interactions with coworkers, superiors, and stakeholders, mentoring and induction programs [41], workplace well-being, job satisfaction, and stress [7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 42]. Otrebski [43] showed that teacher’s perceptions of organizational climate can strongly influence their job satisfaction as well as positive (enthusiasm and effort) and negative (anxiety and depression) emotions. A positive perception of school climate enhances the feeling of job satisfaction and positive emotions. School climate has been shown to influence teacher’s work commitment, job satisfaction, resilience, and their mental health, well-being and stress [44] which play an important role in conflict management. On the reverse side, teacher’s stress also influences classroom climate as shown by a correlational study which investigated the role of teacher’s stress states on classroom cohesion, flexibility and communication (three aspects of classroom climate). Sönmez and Kolaşınlı [45] showed that teacher’s stress negatively influenced the flexibility (absence of free learning environment) and communication dimension (limited student-teacher interaction). Lambert et al. [46] identified teacher, classroom/school and state-level variables that predicted teacher’s risk for occupational stress and burnout. The classroom/school-level variables were number of struggling students (higher number showed more stress), and school location (teachers working in Title I, urban and rural schools had higher stress than suburban). The teacher-level variables were years of experience (more experience had lower stress), subject area specialist or special education teacher (higher stress). The state-level variables related to policy climate, such as states with higher standards for assessment and accountability led to a higher stress score.

A study conducted by Nalipay [47] examined the influence of school-level indicators of climate (academic pressure, engagement of stakeholders, availability of special needs personnel, school delinquency and violence) and teacher-level indicators (disciplinary climate, teacher-student relations, and stakeholder participation) on teacher job satisfaction, workplace well-being and stress (dependent variables). The results of multi-level analyses showed that the dependent variables were more influenced by teacher related indicators than school-level measures. All the teacher-level indicators had a significant influence on job satisfaction. In general, school-level indicators did not have a significant predictive ability on the dependent variable. Workplace well-being and stress were positively influenced by disciplinary climate but negatively influenced by stakeholder’s participation. These results indicate that individual-level characteristics are a stronger determinant of job satisfaction, workplace well-being and stress. Another study investigated the role of school climate factors (e.g., affiliation, student support and conduct, innovation, resource adequacy, work pressure, staff freedom and self-governance) on teacher self-efficacy and stress. The school-level factors which reduced stress were student conduct and staff autonomy whereas work pressure increased stress. Affiliation, professional interest, and innovation had a positive impact on teacher’s self-efficacy. Teacher’s stress was not found to be a mediator when examining the relation between school climate and teacher self-efficacy [48]. The mediating role of teacher’s self-efficacy in explaining school climate (collegial leadership and teacher professionalism) and stress is explained in Hu et al. [49] study. The study results showed that both leadership and professionalism had a statistically significant negative impact on teacher stress through self-efficacy. In other words, teachers who had self-efficacy reported a more positive outlook of leadership and professionalism due to which had perceived lower stress levels. The research on school climate in the context of conflict management and teacher’s stress has also examined the role of inclusive education practices that have the potential to impact teacher well-being, student achievement and parent’s experiences [44]. In this study, the contribution of stressors, risk and protective factors, and inclusive practices on teacher well-being were examined. The well-being of employees and the implementation of inclusive practices (training for content readiness, manage increase workload and handle students with diverse learning needs) reduces the chance of conflicts, stress and burnout.

The school climate has also been examined in the context of cognitive behavioral therapy and tension regulation strategies (e.g., emotional regulation, cognitive reappraisal methods, suppression and resilience) that teachers use for stress management [50, 51]. A study conducted by Jeon and Ardeleanu [52] investigated teacher perceptions of work climate (work situations), family support, children’s behaviors, and perceived stress measured through use of strategies to control their emotions. This study utilized stress coping methods that teachers utilize when dealing with external stressors which can come from either the environment or from individuals or both. Path analysis results show that reappraisal coping strategy acted as a mediator to explain the relationship between work situation and teacher stress. In other words, teacher’s experienced less stress when they used reappraisal as a stress coping strategy to deal with work situations. Suppression was the mediator between children’s behaviors and stress. This indicates that teacher’s experienced less stress when they used suppression as a coping method to manage children’s behaviors (or classroom management). Covariates, such as teacher’s age (older) and general health (poor health) also predicted higher stress levels. Blacks, and non-Hispanic teachers used reappraisal for emotional regulation better than White, non-Hispanic teachers. Teachers who had a bachelor’s degree and had higher household income reported to utilize less suppression as an emotional regulator. Teacher resilience has been investigated in the form of emotional (self-care), professional (competence), motivational (self-efficacy) and social (relationships) to see its impact on conflict and stress management. A literature review on teacher resilience showed that personal-level variables such as moral values, persistence, self-efficacy, coping skills (emotional regulation), teaching skills, professional growth and reflection were important for the management of stress and conflicts. The contextual-level variables included support from school administration (e.g., constructive feedback), mentors and coworkers, student relationships, training received during pre-service years and family support [53]. The specific strategies identified in this literature review to increase teacher well-being and decrease conflicts through the practice of resilience were the involvement in collaborative work activities with coworkers and superiors, to build positive relationships in the workplace (including with students and their parents), segregate work from home to avoid personal conflicts due to professional pressure at workplace (or vice-versa), participation in professional development activities, fair distribution of responsibilities, establishment of clear behavioral expectations and student engagement in classroom to build a healthy environment.

School principals and administrators have a pivotal role to play in conflict management and resolution [42]. There is research on the role of school leadership support (principal’s collegial and supportive behavior, school management, instructional leadership), and contextual factors (school climate and structure, academic expectations, justness and fairness in policies, support and resources) to explain conflicts, stress and coping in teachers [54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59]. Berkovich and Eyal [60] reported that school principals can provide emotional support to teachers through a less formalized work environment, supportive and engaging work climate, common goals, professional knowledge, and perceived accessibility (quality of relationship-transparency and trust; demographic similarity-age and gender). Herman et al. [61] conducted a study where the principals took leadership training program in behavior support. The teachers of these schools were found to be more adaptive (low stress and high coping skills) than schools were the principals did not go through the program (teachers were normative-high stress and less coping). A meta-analysis study on leadership, role ambiguity, conflicts, and structure indicated that extensive workload, interpersonal conflicts, and deficiency of organizational fairness are the most important contributors of teacher stress [62]. The social support from principal and colleagues can fulfill teacher’s basic needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness and reduce the effects of time pressure, and unclear organizational conditions [63]. Job demands and job resource mediated the relationship between social support received from principal and basic needs. Similar results are seen for unclear organizational conditions as a mediator between principal’s social support and the three basic teacher needs. These results indicate that social support from principals influences the job demands and resources because they can remove the ambiguity and conflict present in teacher roles and responsibilities through clear communication, fair accountability practices, and positive work climate. This in turn, fulfills teacher’s basic needs and reduces the likelihood of conflicts. Time pressure has a negative impact on both autonomy and competence dimensions of basic needs. Social support from colleagues mediated the relationship between principal support and relatedness and autonomy [63]. A research study investigated the association between organizational performance, principal’s management skills to resolve the conflicts between teacher-teacher, teacher-student, and parent-teacher. The correlation analysis showed that principal’s management skills to resolve conflict had a significant relationship with organizational performance and teacher-teacher, teacher-student, and parent-teacher conflict and organizational performance. This study highlights the importance of principal’s ability to effectively resolve conflicts which if not addressed in a timely and appropriate manner can lead to hostility, stress, burnout, and reduction in work performance [64]. Fabunimi and Alimba [3] supported the results of this study and indicated that principal’s inability to manage disputes is the major source of conflicts in secondary schools.

A study conducted by Rave et al. [65] showed that organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) of teachers as a group is influenced by the extent to which the school principal attentively listen to their teachers. In this study, teacher’s perception of their principal’s listening quality was used to measure the support the principal had towards teachers. The results showed a positive relationship between perceived principal’s listening quality and group OCB and a negative relationship with teacher’s turnover intentions. The interaction between listening and teacher stress significantly predicted turnover intentions. Specifically, the perceived listing quality of principals was related to a greater reduction in teacher turnover intentions who reported moderate to high stress levels. This means that better is the perceived listening quality of principals, lower is the turnover intentions of teachers who had moderate and high stress. Listening quality of principals also led to higher group OCB in teachers. A systematic review synthesized the research literature on stress, job satisfaction, burnout and turnover intentions in secondary general education teachers [66]. In terms of job satisfaction, the results showed that teachers who worked in smaller schools and in small towns had higher levels of job satisfaction than teachers working in larger and rural schools. The independence teachers have in their jobs, relationships, with students, connection with their schools, and self-efficacy had a positive impact on their job satisfaction. The major school-level stress factors were limited support from the administration, inconducive school climate, lack of adequate training on classroom and workload management. The accountability policies imposed by state and federal legislation (e.g., No Child Left Behind, Every Student Success Achievement Act, Race to the Top) led to decrease in teacher autonomy over curriculum which resulted in depersonalized teaching, dissatisfaction with the polices, and increase in stress levels and turnover intentions.

Teacher’s social identity has been researched in the context of school climate and stress over time by Willis et al. [67]. The data was collected in two waves. Social identification was a mediator between school climate and stress which were measured in wave 1 and 2 respectively. The results of structural equation model show that a more positive teacher perception of school climate and social identification at wave 1 led to a higher score on their self-esteem over time at wave 2. School climate shared a significant relationship with social identification. The mediating effect of social identification on the relationship between school climate and self-esteem was also significant. The literature on social roles explain the importance of identity in the workplace. Identity is an individual’s perception of self-concept based on their competence, beliefs, motivation, personality, mindset and values. Identity helps the individual to define their position in a professional or personal role [68]. Social identification is important because it is an important determinant of group membership, and self-esteem. Teachers perceive themselves based on the nature of their communication and interaction within their workplace [69]. A longitudinal study on teacher’s professional identity showed that a balance between the three work dimensions (personal-time with family and for leisure; professional-roles and responsibilities; and situational-context of work environment) had a positive influence on their job satisfaction and psychological well-being [70]. A study conducted by Padmanabhanunni and Pretorius [71] showed that teacher’s identity was negative correlated with anxiety, hopelessness, role ambiguity, and role stress. In other words, teacher’s who had a higher perception of their identity as an educator had levels of ambiguity, anxiety and stress. A longitudinal study examined teacher’s perceived stress levels (time 3) through coworker support (time 2) and cooperation frequency (time 1) for class preparation [72]. A hierarchical model was implemented to analyze the influence of between-group variable, group-level (school) on within-group, individual-level variables (colleague support and cooperation frequency). The results showed a statistically significant influence of cooperation frequency on teacher’s stress at the within-group level but not at the between-group level when mediated by colleague’s support. These results show that teachers who prepared for classes with colleagues at time 1 reported lower workplace stress at time 3 than teachers who worked by themselves to prepare for classes. Furthermore, greater colleague support was reported at time 2 by those teachers who had worked with other teacher on class preparation in time 1. This study highlights the role of coworker cooperation in encouraging teachers to participate in job-related professional development and the importance of collective effort for class preparation that helps to enhance instructional quality and reduce teacher stress.

On similar lines, organizational and social support (in the form of interactions with coworkers and superiors) have protective effects from occupational stressors (Climate and Organizational Functioning; Pressure at Work; Infrastructure and Routine work activities), and burnout (Emotional exhaustion/Professional frustration and Depersonalization/Detachment) as shown in the study conducted by Baptista and Cardoso [73]. The study highlights that low quality of affective relationships with coworkers, limited relationships with superiors, less opportunities for professional development and growth, insufficient bonuses, limited communication, and inadequate acknowledgement and appreciation at the workplace can increase stress and burnout in teachers. The role of mentoring support in reducing risk of stress in teachers has also shown to reduce the risk of conflicts, occupational stress and burnout in teachers. Boyle et al. [74] showed that teachers who were assigned a mentor at the workplace experiences less stress risk than teachers who were not allocated a mentor. The literature on mentoring support provides evidence of the benefits teachers receive from mentors assigned to them in schools. The study conducted by Kapadia et al. [75] highlights the advantages of mentoring program for novice teachers (beginning career) in the form of teaching strategies, classroom management and observation, and the supportive role of school principals. On similar lines, Ronfeldt and McQueen [76] analyzed data from US National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to demonstrate that an assigned mentor during the first-year of teaching significantly reduced the odds of turnover intentions in teachers. The research on mentoring also provides evidence of induction programs that school districts should have which has a positive impact on occupational commitment, job satisfaction, teacher retention, pedagogical methods and practices, and student achievement with decrease in turnover intentions [41]. The research studies on teacher mentoring and induction programs highlights the need of such initiatives by school district administration to address the antecedents (e.g., support and resources on teaching, classroom management, lesson planning, assessments, student-teacher relationships, parent-teacher relationships) that can lead to conflicts, stress and burnout in teachers.

6. Teacher self-efficacy and conflict management

This section reviews the research literature on the role of self-efficacy as an important coping strategy to manage conflicts, stress and burnout in teachers [77, 78, 79, 80]. In the previous section, we saw that school climate plays an important role in teacher’s self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is the extent to which an individual feels competent and confident to efficiently complete the assigned responsibilities, resolve conflicts, and manage stress. A study conducted by Betoret and Artiga [81] showed that self-efficacy (teacher’s ability to efficiently implement the teaching process and classroom management) along with active coping strategy provides a protective effect against pedagogical barriers (stressors) at the classroom-level (workload, student misbehavior and demotivation, and student diversity), school-level (lack of decision-making, and ambiguity in administrative demands), parent’s level (passive parental involvement) and on burnout (emotional exhaustion, low personal accomplishment and depersonalization-dependent variables). The hierarchical regression results show that majority of pedagogical barriers increase emotional exhaustion, and makes the teachers feel low about their personal achievement and depersonalization. All student-level (except student diversity) factors increase the scores of the three dependent variables related to burnout. The school-level (except ambiguity in demands), and parent-level factor also had enhanced the negative feelings of burnout in teachers. Active coping (ability to deal with the problems directly) reduced the three indicators of burnout while passive coping (avoidance of direct conflict with problems) increased burnout. The self-efficacy in teachers decreased with increase in work experience and that primary school teachers reported higher efficacy scores than secondary school teachers. Self-efficacy had a negative impact on passive coping. Self-efficacy on instructional management had a positive impact on active coping strategy. These results indicate that teachers who have higher efficacy have the ability to directly deal with the problem at hand rather than avoiding it to reduce stress. A similar study showed that self-efficacy mediated the effect of perceived stress and job burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced accomplishment). In other words, self-efficacy helps teachers to develop effective strategies to deal with job-related stressors and helps them to develop a positive attitude and mindset towards teaching. The development of a positive mindset helps the teachers to perceive their failures as opportunities for learning and for regulation their emotions [82]. Putwain and von der Embse [83] showed that perceived self-efficacy of teachers moderated the relationship between pressure arising from curriculum changes and perceived stress. In other words, teachers who had higher self-efficacy scores had lower perceived stress when compared to teachers who reported lower self-efficacy. Another study reported that self-efficacy fully mediated the relationship between social support at workplace and teacher’s job satisfaction. The study also revealed that the likelihood of teachers to give positive reviews about the school administration was higher when they received frequent and immediate feedback from the school’s leadership [84].

Jeon et al. [85] examined the role of three types of self-efficacy (general teaching efficacy, personal teaching efficacy, and disciplinary teaching efficacy) on teachers’ self-perceived psychological well-being, stress, and emotional exhaustion. General teaching efficacy had a negative association with stress and emotional exhaustion indicating that teachers who have confidence in their teaching had lower feelings of stress and emotional fatigue. Disciplinary teaching efficacy had a negative impact on emotional exhaustion. This result shows that teachers have lower emotional exhaustion when they have higher levels of efficacy to discipline children. The study results also showed that teachers had lower levels of depressive symptoms, stress and emotional exhaustion when they have positive perceptions of their work environment (professional development opportunities, family support, less chaos in child care at school and children’s behavior). Self-efficacy has also been investigated in consonance with teacher resilience which is an important strategy for emotional regulation (ability to effectively manage one’s emotions due to job-related stress). Li [86] showed that teacher’s self-efficacy and emotional regulation had a positive impact on their resilience. Teacher self-efficacy had a protective effect from teacher burnout. The results further showed that resilience fully mediated the relationship between teacher self-efficacy and burnout. The study shows that teachers who have higher self-efficacy in their teaching competence are more resilient, tend to spend more time and effort to be engaged in their responsibilities, have a higher sense of belonginess to the school, and experience less burnout. Klassen et al. [87] showed that self-efficacy mediated the relationship between job stress from student’s behavior in teachers across three different countries (Canada, England and Thailand). In other words, teachers who had self-efficacy were better able to handle student’s behavior and deal with their job-related stress.

The longitudinal impact of self-efficacy (school and class) and induction program on beginning teacher’s (3 years’ experience) psychological well-being (perceived discontentment and job tension) was examined in an experimental study. The teachers in experimental group schools had developed and implemented an induction program whereas control group teachers had no such program. The results showed that over time, higher is teacher’s perceived self-efficacy, lower is their discontentment and job tension. On the other hand, higher is the perceived stress over time, higher would be the perceived discontentment and job tension. The comparison between experimental and non-experimental school shows that an increase in the school self-efficacy scores of teachers in the induction program causes a reduction in job tension 10 times more when compared to teachers who were not in any induction program. An increase in class self-efficacy scores of teachers in the induction program leads to a decrease in job discontentment scores that is 16 times stronger when compared to teachers in the control group. School self-efficacy had an eight times lower influence on job discontentment for control group teachers when compared to experimental group teachers. In both groups, higher self-efficacy lead to lower job discontentment [88]. A mixed-methods study investigated the influence of online professional development program on teacher’s self-efficacy, burnout and stress. The study was an experimental study in which teachers were randomly assigned into three different treatment groups (course-only, coaching, and reflective writing) and one control group. No significant differences were found between the experimental groups with regards to changes in stress, self-efficacy, emotional exhaustion, and personal accomplishment when compared to the control group. No significant differences were found in self-efficacy among the coaching and reflective writing group when compared to control group. The course-only group had lower self-efficacy scores in comparison to control group. The qualitative results showed that coaching and reflective writing groups helped teachers to express their emotions when they were exhausted and had low levels of self-efficacy. Course-only teachers became more emotionally worn-out and showed lower self-efficacy than reflective writing group. Teachers in coaching group were able to talk about the challenges and obtain quick feedback which helped them to cope up with emotional exhaustion and lower self-efficacy [89].

7. Interventions for stress management

The immediate consequence of workplace conflicts is stress. The empirical literature on teacher stress management have investigated the use of different type of techniques, such as knowledge-based (teacher education on problem behaviors), behavioral (meditation and relaxation), and cognitive-behavioral interventions (social-emotional learning, manual based treatment protocol, stress management approaches) as well as mindfulness training [90] that helps to manage stress [91]. Mindfulness is defined as the purposeful experience of the present moment without making any judgments or decisions about it. The self-awareness, regulation and transcendence framework explain that the practice of mindfulness can help the individual to separate their feelings and thoughts from circumstance and/or people causing conflicts in workplace which helps to reduce stress and burnout [92]. The literature reports five dimensions of mindfulness which are acting with awareness, describing, observing/ noticing, nonreactivity to inner experience, and nonjudging of inner experience [93]. A study conducted by Aundrea and Bostain [94] showed than teacher’s mindfulness had positive relationships with their resilience to manage burnout. A review of literature on mindfulness interventions for teachers shows its beneficial effects in the form of reduction in depression, anxiety, and tension and an increase in attention, memory capacity, and adaptability to manage work tension [90]. The results of a randomized controlled trial showed the effects of an intervention that combined mindfulness and social-emotional learning. The intervention significantly reduced perceived stress in secondary teachers and conflict in student-teacher relationship [95]. These studies highlight the importance of behavioral, cognitive and mindfulness interventions to manage conflicts in school environment and reduce stress and burnout in teachers.

8. Teacher conflict and stress during COVID-19

The pandemic brought unrealistic and unexpected changes in the school’s work environment where all classroom teaching and other activities shifted to completely online mode. These sudden changes led to increase in teacher anxiety, stress and burnout due to role ambiguity, role conflict and minimal support from the school district administration [62, 96, 97, 98], and psychosomatic health problems due to psychosocial demand factors (job insecurity, workload, lack of organizational justice) and lack of social support [99]. Teacher’s had to manage conflicts and stress arising from environmental, (school administration, student’s home environment and parent-teacher relationship), role related (climate and classroom management, virtual teaching, and student issues), and personal factors (work-family balance, uncertainty and work over load) as reported in a study by Boneh et al. [100]. Teacher’s mental health was also impacted during COVID-19 as examined in a systematic review conducted by Santiago et al. [101]. The review showed that generalized anxiety disorders were associated with several risk factors, such as age (younger individuals), gender (females), ethnicity (African-American/Black), low income, having own children, and lower job stability with less than 5 years teaching experience. Burnout syndrome was associated with teacher’s emotional exhaustion, depression (due to work-family conflict, work stress, limited social and emotional support, alteration in the social relationships in workplace, job instability and job loss) and depersonalization as well as lack of professional accomplishment. This syndrome was reported more in special education teachers. Technostress (“unsuccessful adaptation due to failure in dealing with technology and changes in the requirements related to the use of technology” p. 24) was also a major cause of burnout. The review indicated that resilience, and job satisfaction were commonly found to cope with anxiety, burnout, and stress [102]. The antecedents of burnout during COVID-19 were gender, age, perceived vulnerability to disease, perceived infectability, germ aversion, and role stress (role ambiguity and role conflict). The dimensions of burnout were anxiety, depression, hopelessness, and dissatisfaction with life. Emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment explained psychological well-being. Results showed that women reported higher emotional exhaustion. All the dimensions of burnout significantly predicted the constructs that explained psychological well-being. Fear of COVID-19, role ambiguity and role conflict were significant predictors of burnout [103].

9. Teacher coping and conflict management during COVID-19

Teachers were faced to enhance their cognitive and emotional coping skills to deal with the pedagogical challenges and conflicts to reduce the intensity of stress and burnout during COVID-19. The presence of social support from coworkers and school administration, coping resources helps the employee to meet the workplace demands and also have flexibility to the change or shift in job responsibilities [104, 105]. Teachers had to develop new plans for instruction, classroom management, student engagement and assessment. The disruption in routine procedures and increase in work load also meant that it was important to review research on conflict management strategies to reduce burnout and stress. The study conducted by Truzoli et al. [106] showed that teacher’s self-efficacy, locus of control and stress coping strategies (planning class activities, comparing oneself with coworkers, confiding in family and friend, finding alternative means for relaxation) had protective effects on anxiety, stress, and aggression). The study also showed that teacher’s technological skills, support received from school, satisfaction with online teaching, and appropriate communication in online teaching were reported to be effective coping strategies to manage anxiety and stress.

A mixed-methods study conducted by Hidalgo-Andrade et al. [107] concluded that social support (family, friends, spiritual activities) was the most frequently used coping strategy during the pandemic to manage psychological distress followed by leisure activities, mental health promotion (psychological well-being), and work with study (professional growth). Another study conducted by Porru et al. [108] assessed teacher’s perception of risk to contract COVID and the effectiveness of health measures (EHM). The risk perceptions were used as mediating variables to examine the causal impact of teacher stress, and cognitive factors (job satisfaction, self-efficacy and emotional intensity) and their perceptions of COVID-19 on dependent variables (teaching methods and social relationships at school). The path analysis results showed that teacher stress was positively correlated with risk of contracting COVID-19 and higher stress scores indicated lower perception of EHM. Teacher’s emotional intensity had an indirect effect on their perception of COVID-19 through the risk perceptions as mediator variable. The study also found that cognitive factors had an indirect effect on dependent variables through risk perception of contracting COVID-19 and EHM. The study highlights the importance of stress and presence of cognitive coping strategies (self-efficacy and emotional intensity) in school teachers [108]. The emotional competence and ability to handle conflicts of primary school teachers was examined in terms of socio-demographic (sex, age, have own children) and professional (teaching experience, type of school) variables and their ability to manage students (interpret student emotions, respect for students). Women scored higher than men in emotional competence and conflict handling capability. Age, children, years of teaching experience, and type of school had no differences in terms of emotional competence, classroom management and skill to deal with conflicts. The youngest teachers showed slightly higher sensitivity to develop learning environments that address student diversity. The results also indicated that teachers who loved their work were marginally more prepared to deal with conflicts [109].

Resilience has been identified as a major factor that has a negative effect on role conflict. In other words, high levels of resilience have a protective effect and reduces the occurrence of role conflict. Padmanabhanunni [110] conducted as study on teacher resilience and its relationship with role conflict, role ambiguity, life satisfaction, anxiety and depression. The results showed that resilience had a negative impact on anxiety, depression, and role conflict and ambiguity but a positive influence on life satisfaction. In another study conducted by Liu et al. [111], the association between job burnout, turnover intentions, and resilience was investigated in high school teachers. The results showed that resilience had a negative effect on job burnout and turnover intention, which again reiterates the idea that resilience is an effective coping strategy during conflict, and stress.

In addition to resilience, self-efficacy has been shown to manage conflicts, stress and turnover intentions in teachers and offers a protective effect against burnout during the pandemic [112, 113]. Teaching efficacy is directly related to teacher’s self-efficacy which is the trust teachers have in their ability to help student learn, motivate, engage and attain high levels of academic achievement. Self-efficacy related to teaching (instructional strategies, classroom management and student engagement along with emotional regulation were examined as predictors for work-related burnout. The results showed that lower scores on self-efficacy related to instructional strategies led to higher burnout scores [112]. A study conducted by Lucker et al. [96] explored the sources of support that teachers felt were important to them. The teachers indicated in their survey responses that family, friends, pupil’s student’s parents, school management, coworkers were the most important individuals who supported them during the pandemic. The teachers also noted the different types of conflict and stress coping strategies, such as availability of reliable information, relaxation techniques (e.g., sports and yoga, activities in nature), experiencing appreciation and being with people who are valuable. The study showed that proactive coping was positively correlated with perceived self-efficacy. The results also showed that teachers who had higher levels of perceived self-efficacy and proactive coping were less likely to leave their jobs than those teachers who had higher levels of stress. Teaching efficacy on technological content knowledge (TCK) and overall satisfaction with personal lives were also shown to have beneficial effects on online teaching during the pandemic. The role of self-efficacy has also been examined with technological content knowledge, motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic) in the context of occupational stress (burnout and technostress/technological overload) and intentions to use online instruction. The results showed that teacher’s self-efficacy intrinsic motivation negatively influenced their intention to continue the use of online instruction. Intrinsic motivation also had a negative impact on burnout and technostress. Burnout and technostress were significant mediators between intrinsic motivation and intention to continue the usage of online instruction.

Job satisfaction is the contentment and happiness an employee feels in the workplace with regards to their performance, productivity and overall well-being. Several studies have shown the positive effect of teacher’s job satisfaction on various outcome variables, including conflict and stress management. A study conducted by Padmanabhanunni and Pretorius [97] used teaching satisfaction as a measure of job satisfaction. The results showed that teaching satisfaction had a negative relationship with role conflict, role ambiguity, depression, and negative aspect of psychological well-being and a positive association with life satisfaction. Both role conflict and role ambiguity had a positive association with anxiety and depression. Research has shown that employees who have high self-efficacy also have more job satisfaction. Hence, self-efficacy is an important predictor of job satisfaction as shown in the study by Bartosiewicz et al. [114]. The quantitative analyses showed that job satisfaction had a positive impact on work-related behaviors related to healthy type (committed, balanced, problem-solvers) where employees reported higher levels of self-efficacy scores when compared to burnout (high levels of pessimistic emotions and low mental resilience) and savings type (reduced level of motivation, limited levels of professional responsibility). In a study conducted by Punzalan [102], job satisfaction has also been shown to have a negative correlation with work family conflict and family work conflict.

10. Summary

This chapter presented the current research trends on the causes, consequences and management of conflicts occurring in PK-12 schools with teachers as the main focal point. The primary causes of conflict in schools is due to individual (e.g., self-efficacy, coping strategies), and contextual-level factors (e.g., organizational fairness, workplace climate, availability of interventions for stress management) [22, 26, 73, 95]. The majority of studies reviewed were either quantitative or qualitative research design. Future studies on conflicts in schools can focus on mixed-methods research designs to have richer data and deeper understanding of the factors under investigation. The research conducted in this topic can also investigate the role of workplace bullying as one of the antecedents for conflicts. Future research on conflicts can also utilize longitudinal research designs to study the role of individual and contextual-level factors on conflict management and resolution over a period of time. Furthermore, the research on conflicts with teachers as the focal point can benefit if interventions and strategies can be developed based on the source of conflict. The knowledge generated could be used by principals and school district administration to effectively manage and resolve conflicts in an appropriate and timely manner. The current body of empirical literature on conflicts in PK-12 schools is valuable. Further research on this topic would be beneficial to reduce the negative consequences of conflicts at micro and macro levels within school districts.