Teachers’ voices on well-being: An in-depth look at PERMA with (happy) Icelandic teachers ; Upplifun grunnskólakennara af eigin velfarnaði út frá PERMA

This article focuses on the well-being of Icelandic compulsory school teachers. Teachers’ well-being is not only important for teachers themselves but also affects their students’ well-being and academic success. Low recruitment to the profession and high turnover as teachers resign or retire, have been causes for concern in Iceland as well as in other countries in recent years. Research on professional competence has shown the necessity for teachers to possess the skills needed to meet the demands of the profession and stand firm in their professionalism, in addition to possessing strategies for coping with stress. Without these, their professional identity may suffer which can in turn have a negative effect on job satisfaction. This increases the likelihood of teachers retiring or changing careers. One aspect of maintaining a stronger professional identity is to look at teachers’ well-being, as several studies have found that teachers who experience well-being are more satisfied and effective at work and less likely to leave the profession. In addition, their students appear to experience a greater sense of well-being and to achieve more.The aim of the study was to examine in depth, different elements of the well-being of Icelandic compulsory school teachers who consider themselves to be happy. This was done by applying Seligman’s PERMA Well-Being Theory to see how well it captures the elements of teachers’ well-being. PERMA defines five important elements to experience well-being: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment. The PERMA-Profiler was used to develop an interview guide together with more general questions about well-being. Eight in-depth interviews were conducted with working compulsory school teachers who feel happy in their work and their personal lives. The data was thematically analyzed, both deductively, where answers were matched with the PERMA elements, and inductively, where a search for other themes was conducted.All the PERMA elements came through in the ...