Thriving or surviving? Emotional resilience development among Chinese rural beginning teachers from a social-ecological perspective

Teacher emotional resilience is regarded as a professional capacity and process in which teachers utilise resources to cope with emotion-related tensions in their work to achieve better development. This study aims to investigate the development of beginning teachers’ emotional resilience and its factors in a Chinese rural school. Using a social-ecological perspective, this research adopted an ethnographic case study to explore ten beginning teachers’ experiences and feelings by conducting interviews, artefacts, and field notes. The findings showed that beginning teachers usually encounter relation-related, teaching-related, and role-related emotional tensions. To address these tensions, general personal resources, professional support from others, and supportive policies jointly shape the development paths of emotional resilience amongst beginning teachers. Accordingly, emotional resilience development follows three discernible paths: Enthusiast, Doubter, and Survivor. The interactions amongst various emotional dilemmas and social-ecological factors yield a cumulative impact on teacher emotional resilience development.