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School counsellors’ resilience in Turkey: A phenomenological study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2019

Deniz Guler  and
Esra Ceyhan
Deniz Guler*
Affiliation:
Department of Guidance and Counselling, Faculty of Education, Anadolu University, Eskisehir, Turkey
Esra Ceyhan
Affiliation:
Department of Guidance and Counselling, Faculty of Education, Anadolu University, Eskisehir, Turkey
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Resilience is a crucial personal characteristic of school counsellors to protect and maintain their wellbeing against the effects of occupational stress factors in school settings. However, there has been a lack of research investigating school counsellors’ resilience in Turkey. Therefore, this study aims to explore the resilience of school counsellors working in schools with at-risk students in terms of stress and protective factors. The study was conducted using a qualitative research method with a phenomenological approach. The data were collected through semistructured interviews from 10 school counsellors working in schools with at-risk students. The data analysis was carried out with an inductive approach using an NVivo 11 software package program. The analysis revealed a variety of findings, both positive and negative, regarding the resilience of school counsellors. In this scope, three interrelated themes emerged as ‘Occupational Stressors’, ‘Personal Factors: Strength versus Vulnerability’, and ‘Positive and Negative Results: Happiness and Satisfaction versus Helplessness and Burnout’. The results show that school counsellors working in schools with at-risk students experience a variety of occupational stresses and that their experience of happiness and satisfaction, or helplessness and burnout, depends on a level of strengths or weaknesses with reference to personal factors.

Keywords

school counsellorresiliencejob stressprotective factors
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Psychologists and Counsellors in Schools , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , December 2020 , pp. 185 - 201
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Copyright
© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Cambridge University Press

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