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Dissertation
Adverse Childhood Experiences and Secondary Trauma in Head Start Teachers: A Qualitative Study
University of West Florida Libraries
Doctor of Education (EDD), University of West Florida
2024
Abstract
School systems have been implementing trauma-informed curriculums to offset any trauma students may be experiencing. In the Head Start classroom, many students enter with trauma and display behaviors that cause secondary traumatic stress for the educators working with them. Exposure to students’ traumas can cause educators to experience secondary traumatic stress. This study used a qualitative, transcendental phenomenological design to explore the experiences of Head Start teachers in select public schools in southeastern Florida who lived through adversities as children under 18 years of age. The use of Bandura’s social cognitive theory helped provide the theoretical framework for the study, examining how the educators’ environment, cognitive skills, and self-efficacy affected their response to their students’ trauma. This study revealed that most of the participants had feelings of stress and mental health issues that pervaded their daily interactions. The participants noted how integral the classroom environment was to student interactions and felt intrinsically motivated by their desire to see the students succeed. The participants also shared how their personal learning styles affected their abilities to implement new strategies with fidelity. The findings in this study corroborate previous studies on the levels of stress experienced by Head Start teachers in the classroom. Future research should compare secondary traumatic stress in educators with or without personal histories. Future studies should also explore the self-efficacy skills of experienced teachers and examine how to integrate
educators’ learning styles into professional development to increase their fidelity to learned strategies.
Details
- Title
- Adverse Childhood Experiences and Secondary Trauma in Head Start Teachers
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Contributors
- Hongwei Yang (Advisor)Rashmi Sharma (Committee Member)Chad Hodge (Committee Member)
- Publisher
- University of West Florida Libraries
- Format
- pdf
- Number of pages
- 230
- Copyright
- Unpublished work © Elizabeth Urgell
- Identifiers
- 99380551396206600
- Academic Unit
- School of Education
- Language
- English
- Awarding Institution
- University of West Florida; Doctor of Education (EDD)
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Education (EDD), University of West Florida