Is it the job or the work place that matters most? An analysis based on a study of social capital in public schools

Abstract

During the last 50 years, research on psychosocial factors at work has mainly been focusing on issues that could be labeled job factors: Demands, autonomy, monotony, possibilities for development and learning, etc. This has been the focus in the dominating theories as well in the prevailing methods. On the basis of a study of social capital in the schools of a Danish municipality we question this focus by showing that the level of social capital of the individual schools determines to a large degree the well-being, stress level and job satisfaction of the employees. On the basis of these analyses we attempt to explain some paradoxes with regard to the psychosocial work environment in Danish schools. A number of studies performed during the last 20 years have concluded very differently about this issue. Some have concluded that the work of teachers is highly stressful and detrimental to health while others have concluded that the job is one of the healthiest in the country. Our study suggests that these contradictions could very well be caused by the fact that the wrong question was asked. There is no unambiguous answer to the question ”whether the job as teacher is good or bad”. The answer depends on the level of social capital at the individual school. Our conclusion is thus that what matters are not whether you work as a teacher or not, but at which school you are employed as such. In general, we recommend that research on psychosocial factors dismisses the rather one-sided focus on job factors and adopts a model that includes factors at a number of different levels including work place social capital.