The Flourishing of Tehran Teachers and it's affecting Demographic Variables

Flourishing refers to having a good life experience and is a combination of good feeling and effective performance. Positive psychologists believe that education of flourishing should be started in school years and from teachers of a community. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the flourishing of teachers in Tehran and it’s affecting demographic variables.

In this descriptive study, 412 high school teachers from Tehran were selected via multi-stage cluster random sampling method. Instrument was Human Psychological Flourishing Scale (Hojabiran, Rezaei, Bigdeli, Najafi & Mohammadifar, 2017) which measures 3 components including sense of satisfaction/happiness, individual competency and social engagement. The results were analyzed by descriptive statistics, multivariate and univariate analysis of variance.

Descriptive results showed that 4.6% of the teachers were languishing, 41.8% were moderately flourishing and 53.6% were flourishing. The status of teachers in the individual competency component is relatively desirable but it needs more attention in terms of satisfaction/happiness component. A comparison of flourishing based on demographic variables showed that married teachers achieved higher scores in all three components of flourishing. Official teachers also achieved higher levels of social engagement than unofficial teachers. There was no significant difference in the rate of flourishing based on other variables (gender, grade, major, parental education, job experience and ethnicity).

According to the results, it is suggested to develop an interventional to promote teacher's flourishing and to provide in their on the job training. Also arrangements to be considered to increase job support for unofficial teachers and provide counseling services to single teachers.