Background: Teachers are faced with everyday stressful events such as overexposure to the media, family related issues and school. The self-esteem of a teacher as a person is very important, as the chances of a teacher’s being of maximum benefit to the self-esteem of pupils are very small unless they maintain their own self-esteem at a high level.
Aims: To analyze the relationship between self-esteem and perceived stress among private school teachers.
Methods: In the current study, data from 100 teachers working in private schools in Delhi-NCR using random purposive sampling was collected. Self-esteem was assessed using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) was used to assess perceived stress. The data was analyzed using the statistical software SPSS (version 20.0).
Results and Conclusion: The majority of the private school teachers had average self-esteem and perceived stress. Female teachers are far better at coping with stress than male teachers. It was also found that teachers of private schools who live in a joint family had better self-esteem and comparatively more perceived stress than teachers of private schools who live in a nuclear family. Further, unmarried teachers had better self-esteem than married and divorced teachers of private schools and divorced teachers had less perceived stress than married and unmarried teachers of private schools.
We as a society need to take a proactive approach to help prospective teachers deal with the everyday problems they are being faced with.
