Teacher–working-environment fit as a framework for burnout experienced by Finnish teachers

The purpose of this study was to explore the kinds of episodes that challenge comprehensive school teachers’ occupational well-being and cause burnout and how teachers perceive the relationship between themselves and their working environment in these episodes. Altogether, a selected group of 68 primary and secondary school teachers were interviewed. The narratives of burdening episodes were identified and analysed from the qualitative data. The results suggested that teachers’ working environment provides multiple contexts for burnout. Sources for teacher burnout varied between the working contexts provided by the single school. Moreover, the results showed that there was heterogeneity in the quality of the teacher–working-environment fit reported by the teachers while facing burdening situations or series of events in their work.

► We explore the kinds of episodes that contributed to teacher burnout experience.
► Teachers’ working environment provides multiple contexts for burnout.
► The quality of the fit reported by the teachers in burdening episodes varied.
► Teacher burnout is situated in nested working environments of school.