The resilience capacity of physical education teachers in high-poverty schools

Because teacher attrition has a negative influence on the educational system—especially in high-poverty schools, providing resources to build resilience in teachers is critical to their professional success and development. Identifying facilitators and barriers to physical education teacher resiliency are key components for informing the profession as how to best combat the issues of teacher attrition in high poverty schools. Though research has been conducted regarding the resilience capacity of general education teachers, studying the resilience capacity of physical educators is unique; therefore, the purpose of this investigation was to discover key-socializing agents associated with the resilience capacity of physical education teachers at varying career stages and the nature of the instructional settings in the high-poverty school contexts in which they teach. A sequence of methods, including formal and informal interviews, questionnaires, surveys, and observations of teaching, were combined to characterize the nature of physical education teacher resiliency during the academic year. During data analysis, quantitative data from the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale 10 were used to triangulate emergent, qualitative themes. Results revealed the teachers identified, as being most resilient possessed individual dispositions that facilitated positive responses to barriers within the organizational environment that teachers identified as less resilient reacted negatively to. Additionally, students were considered to be influential members of organizational environment that influenced a teacher’s capacity for resilience. The teachers identified as being most resilient, worked in organizational environments that possessed a strong culture of unity among staff members. Proactive administrators that helped promote student, teacher, and community partnerships led these schools