What you think is what you feel: Immigration-related value beliefs predict emotional exhaustion in pre-service teachers

Cultural diversity has recently been discussed as a potential stressor for teachers. The present study contributes to this discussion by examining the role of cultural diversity in the development of emotional exhaustion among teachers. Using the teacher stress model as a framework, we investigated if working conditions, such as cultural diversity (1), value beliefs, such as cultural beliefs or stereotypes towards students with an immigration background (2), and perceived professional competence, such as teaching experience and self-efficacy (3), predict emotional exhaustion. The data comes from a longitudinal study with 291 German pre-service mathematics teachers (M = 9.5 month). Results from robust multiple regression analyses showed no relation between cultural diversity and emotional exhaustion. Emotional exhaustion was significantly predicted by prior emotional exhaustion, frequent class disruptions, and large classes. Regarding cultural beliefs, participants with more stereotypes towards students with an immigration background experienced a higher level of emotional exhaustion, whereas the actual cultural diversity in their class had no impact. Contrary to our hypotheses, no effect was found for cultural beliefs. Taken together, our results suggest that it is not cultural diversity per se that leads to emotional exhaustion but evaluative processes of seeing students with an immigration background as burden that reflect beginning teachers' stereotypes. Practical implications are that teacher training should aim to reduce candidates' stereotypes towards students with an immigration background and allow more hands-on teaching experience.