Research On The Occupational Stress And Social Support System Of Rural Principals

Since the 18 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China(CPC),the state has taken various measures to vigorously support rural education,and has made outstanding achievements in overcoming poverty through education.However,the task of revitalizing rural education is still arduous.Rural principals are still faced with such realistic difficulties as the constraints of geographical environment,the complexity of education management,the marginal nature of administrative management,and the limited use of resources.At the same time,the lack of effective social support within and outside the organization makes rural principals endure huge professional pressure.Clarifying the current situation of rural principals’ occupational pressure,exploring effective social support models,and building a comprehensive,effective and standardized social support system for rural principals can effectively alleviate the occupational pressure of rural principals,improve their work motivation,and thus lead rural schools to revitalize in the process of reform.This study focuses on four core issues:(1)what is the actual state of the occupational stress of rural principals? What are the characteristics and influencing factors?(2)What is the actual status of rural principals receiving social support? What are the characteristics?(3)How can different models of social support help rural principals alleviate their occupational stress?(4)How to build a perfect social support system to alleviate the occupational stress of rural principals?Focusing on the core issues,this study is based on the social ecosystem theory,occupational stress theory,social support and occupational stress mechanism theory.In terms of research methods,literature,questionnaire,qualitative interview and case analysis were comprehensively used to conduct questionnaire survey and quantitative analysis on 282 rural school principals and 72 county school principals in 18 provinces of China,and in-depth interviews were conducted on 40 rural principals,10 staff of the county education department and 14 rural education related personnel in 19 provinces of China.And the three-level coding method of grounded theory is used to analyze the interview materials.The main findings are as follows:Firstly,the source of rural principals’ occupational pressure mainly includes primary pressure and secondary pressure.The primary pressure mainly comes from the school’s meso system level,such as the lack of school resources,the "urban" flow of students and teachers.Secondly,it comes from the personal micro system level,such as the role burden is too heavy,the role responsibilities are vague,etc.When the rural principals try to deal with the primary pressure,they will take a series of actions to actively increase their power,which will generate secondary pressure in the process of empowerment.Secondly,the formation of rural principals’ occupational pressure is mainly affected by three factors: external factors,internal factors and individual factors.The external factors are mainly the ecological crisis faced by rural education in the context of urbanization.The internal factors are mainly the logical conflict of the organizational system and the lack of equity in the organizational culture.The individual factors are mainly the lack of role understanding ability and role response wisdom of rural principals.Thirdly,at present,the main bodies of social support for rural principals are diversified,including government agencies and management departments,quasi administrative organizations,communities and other ten categories.The content of rural principals’ social support is mainly the import of financial resources,material resources and other resources.There are four types of social support: administrative,public welfare,mutual aid and self-induced.Fourthly,in the face of occupational pressure,rural principals have taken differentiated action strategies based on the access and utilization of social support: the first is to actively seek social support,the second is to passively wait for social support,and the third is to passively respond to social support.As an intermediate condition,differentiated action strategies will affect the effect of social support on occupational stress.There will be obvious differences in the degree of occupational stress of rural principals who adopt different action strategies to deal with social support.Fifthly,the social support given to rural principals has gradually changed from a single resource import type to a systematic and comprehensive type,which is an inevitable path and the best choice.At present,there are four typical and effective comprehensive social support modes: The first is the urban and rural education community support mode under the leadership of the government;The second is the multi-party linkage support mode under the intervention of social organizations;The third is the support mode of the homogeneous school mutual aid alliance;The fourth is the support mode of regional collaborative education.Based on the above findings,this study constructs a social support system for rural principals,which includes four subsystems: resource support system,intelligence support system,development support system and emotional support system.Among them,resource support system is the foundation,intelligence support system is the core element,development support system is the source of power,and emotional support system is the spiritual link.The operation of the social support system will help rural principals alleviate occupational pressure and improve work efficiency.