Engaging with the Problem (and Misframing) of Teacher Wellbeing in Aotearoa New Zealand: Notes for Context-Based Social Justice Approaches

Teacher wellbeing has gained increasing attention in recent decades, intricately related to the problems of teacher retention, attrition and shortages. In some respects, the emerging debates have been fundamentally disconnected from the everyday lives of teachers, schools and school communities. Teacher wellbeing is repeatedly foregrounded as a matter of/for education policy since it compromises quality education and the sustainability of education systems. This article presents the conclusions of a series of talanoa or open conversations with teachers in an urban secondary school in Aotearoa New Zealand, in which teachers’ sense of wellbeing is marked by the fact of being in the frontline, witnessing and attempting to respond to various forms of social violence that are enacted in school. Engaging with Martin Thrupp’s idea of ‘context’, the article proposes a social justice approach to teacher wellbeing that shifts the focus to understanding teaching as an ethico-political endeavour.