The satisfaction of Alaska's isolated rural teachers with their work life

• Main Authors: Judith Kleinfeld, Ed. D, G. Williamson Mcdiarmid
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1986
• Subjects: Indian; eskimo*; Alaska
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.573.5020; http://www.jrre.psu.edu/articles/v3,n3,p117-120,Kleinfeld.pdf

Thsi study examines the sources of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction among 304 teachers randomly selected from small isolated schools in rural Alaska. These teachers are highly satisfied about their relationship with students and their pay benefits. Large numbers of teachers are dissatisfied, however, with community amenities, their students ' academic progress, and especially, school district management. Most of these teachers teach in Indian and Eskimo villages; yet they feel that interorganizational relationships with the district office cause them more stress than cross-cultural relationships with the students and community. In many isolated rural schools, high teacher turnover erodes the quality of education rural students receive. Hartrick, Hills, arid Wallin [3] found that six out of ten teachers employed in rural British Columbia were not teaching in the same district five years later. A recent study [5] of teachers in rural Alaska found that a ma-jority have taught at their present schools less than two years. Few researchers have asked what causes job dissatisfac-tion among teachers in isolated rural schools. The few