The Difficult Role of the Teacher Between Burnout, Professional Ethics and Community

It is generally accepted that teaching is among helping professions which are strongly related to the risk of burnout. This, as evidenced in the literature, refers to those professions that involve a significant relationship with users and where the profession is embedded within institutional contexts. The professional identity of the teacher, in fact, unfolds through diverse and complex levels, which often collude with overlapping roles and unclear boundaries. This paper aims to start new avenues of reflection on the risks of burnout within the school context, focussing on the individual and social well-being of the teacher and the repercussions on the student’s teaching-learning process, and on the consequent need to initiate prevention paths based on adult education. In this regard, the paper intends to highlight the results of a qualitative research conducted in 2023 and involving secondary school teachers in the province of Palermo, subdivided by gender and type of institution in which they serve. The main objective of the research, which fits within the framework of fundamental pedagogy of hermeneutic-phenomenological style, was to survey the subjective perception of the burnout phenomenon and teachers’ job satisfaction, specifically referring to the pandemic emergency. The basic assumption within which qualitative research is conducted is the importance of the subjective perspective in field research, through which it is possible to trace a precise idea of education: understood as a complex process characterised by a dynamic intersubjective confrontation aimed at the active construction of meanings, the rethinking of existing models and the elaboration of tradition. The study involved a questionnaire with completion items designed to investigate the representation of the construct and the perception of the phenomenon, whether experienced with an individualistic or communal attitude. The first aim of the study becomes access to the teacher’s lived experience, with specific reference to the risk and protection factors that contribute to the definition of professional identity and ethics. The broader aim is to promote more fruitful educational practices, insofar as they are communitarian, from the point of view of those involved.