Étude des relations entre la résilience d'enseignantes et d’enseignants du primaire œuvrant en milieux défavorisés et la réflexion sur la pratique

The actual teaching context in Québec is undoubtedly influenced by changes of the profession throughout the last decades. These changes are marked by the growing complexity of the task and the challenging working conditions, especially in poor inner-city schools. While some teachers suffer from burnout or literally quit the profession, others take it as a challenge and find ways to improve themselves professionally; this could be termed resilience. Some studies point out that the professional competences and abilities are an important personal protective factor enhancing teacher resilience. Besides, the professional development literature stresses that teacher reflection is fairly significant in this process. In that perspective, we can wonder if some links could be emphasized between teacher resilience and reflection.  Thus, according to G.E. Richardson’s (2002) conceptualization, we explored the relationship between teacher resilience and reflection on practice, as conceptualized by Korthagen (1985, 2004). To do so, we used a mixed method approach. Before data collection and analysis, we first had to operationalize these two concepts, by means of indicators form different instruments: a quality of work life questionnaire, a daily stress diary, a semi-structured interview. 23 teachers across seven Montréal underprivileged elementary schools participated to the whole study. Nearby 7000 segments were coded in the interviews. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data enabled us to describe the adversity (stress) faced by the participants, their quality of work life and their professional competences (positive adaptation), and their personal and environmental risk and protective factors. This procedure made it possible to identify four resilience profiles among the 23 teachers:  1) very resilient (2 teachers), 2) resilient (9 teachers), 3) less resilient (8 teachers), and 4) non resilient (2 teachers). Each teacher was then characterized according to his reflection, using the selected theoretical models. Most of the teachers seemed more concerned describing the problems than searching for solutions to solve them, and mostly centered on the environmental contents of reflection, instead the personal ones. Afterwards, the vertical analysis of four representative cases was compared to highlight the differences between the teachers, according to their reflection. These distinctions were stronger and clearer for the two teachers situated at the extremes of the resilience continuum (the most resilient and the less resilient teachers of the sample). Particularly, a low resilience seemed to be related to an increased emphasis on the problems instead of the solutions, and on the environmental instead of the personal reflective contents, and inversely. At last, despite some empirical and methodological limits, this research reveals the evidence of empirical relationships between resilience and reflection of elementary teachers working in poor inner-city schools. The study also highlights some avenues for professional development and teacher resilience, and suggests ideas for future research.

Keyphrases: Stress, Teacher resilience, Teacher reflection, Teaching, Poor inner-city schools, Stress, Professional development, Professional competences, Problem solving