The purpose of the study was to understand the infant teacher's difficulties or conflicts they faced before and after marriage in order to provide the basic information that helped teachers cope with those difficulties and helped to make a policy to s...
The purpose of the study was to understand the infant teacher's difficulties or conflicts they faced before and after marriage in order to provide the basic information that helped teachers cope with those difficulties and helped to make a policy to support infant teachers between home and teaching job. To achieve the research purpose, the following research questions were set.
1. What are the difficulties of infant teachers working in the childhood educational institutions in the process of marriage preparation?
2. What are the difficulties of infant teachers working in the childhood educational institutions after marriage?
The participants of this study were 5 kindergarten teachers and 5 nursery teachers, working in childhood educational institutions located in D city. In-depth interview, telephone interview, and internet interview were carried out for 4 months. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed.
The results of the study were categorized into two: the difficulty in the process of marriage preparation, and the difficulty after marriage.
The difficulties that the infant teachers faced in the process of marriage preparation, were as follows. First, teachers felt worried about having a fiance which might impact on job acquirement. It's because normally directors did not feel happy as marriage led to pregnancy and childbirth. Second, teachers felt difficult to decide when to marry because it was not easy to go on a holiday in the middle of semester. Therefore, they planned their marriage with directors where they worked, rather than planning with bridegrooms or families. Third, teachers felt difficult to prepare the event of marriage because they did not make a time for preparation with long working hour. Therefore, they tended not to participate in the preparation actively, so their mothers helped or their fiancees prepared alone. Fourth, teachers felt sorry for going for honeymoon because other colleagues should replace work while their vacancies, instead of hiring temporary teachers.
In addition, teachers after marriage also faced difficulties as working in childhood educational institutions. First, the married teachers felt difficulties in doing houseworks like dinner preparation and chores because of late returning home. They often went out for dinner or had delivered dinner, so family's health including teachers themselves, could be in danger of becoming worse. Second, teachers experienced family conflict in the family event because of the role of daughter-in-law. Teachers excused their situation to husband's family or they got through difficulties with care of colleagues. Third, pregnant teachers tended to quit their jobs because of the risk of miscarriage due to excessive work, job stress, and physical limitation without any supporting policies. Fourth, teachers tended to leave educational institutions because they felt a difficulty in obtaining maternity leave. Even though they could have maternity leave, they could feel sorry because while their absence, without a recruitment of replacing their position, their colleagues had to work more for teachers in leave. Therefore, most teachers decided to quit the job.