Coping styles of music teachers

Abstract

The previous findings have shown that musicians as well as music teachers differ in personality characteristics from the general population. There are strong indications that musicians are exposed to numerous stressful situations during their education and professional life. We aimed to: identify preferred coping styles of music teachers and their possible difference in comparison to non-music teachers* coping styles, as well as to depict their relationship taking into consideration certain socio-demographic variables. The sample consists of music teachers (N=67) who teach instruments and music theory and teachers who teach general subjects (N=72). All the teachers filled in the Plutchik*s Coping Styles Questionnaire. We included gender, educational level, working experience and urban/non-urban environment as socio-demographical variables. Findings show that music teachers have preferred coping styles such as: minimizing the problem, avoiding the problem, asking others for help, doing unrelated pleasurable activities, but also improving shortcomings. On the other hand, no differences were found regarding the coping styles profile between music and non-music teachers. There are indications that female teachers are more prone to use avoiding, help seeking and substitution behavioral strategies, but they are also prone to use improving personal limitations or limitations imposed by the situation. Results show that there are differences, to a certain extent, between: older and younger music teachers and music teachers from urban and non-urban environments. We may conclude that mainly passive and avoiding styles and dysfunctional strategies in tension reduction are used by both groups of teachers.