Improving Teacher Job Satisfaction: The Roles of Social Capital,Teacher Efficacy,and Support

In this study, we examine how social capital, teacher efficacy, and organizational support increase teacher job satisfaction. Research suggests that teachers worldwide are exceedingly dissatisfied with their jobs and have significantly higher levels of turnover than their counterparts in other professions. We investigate this phenomenon using a sample of 122 elementary school teachers. We found that teachers’ centrality position, or each teacher’s relationship with every other teacher, in their school’s trust network and the density of a teacher’s academic advice ego-network predicted the development of teacher job satisfaction. Additionally, we found that teacher efficacy mediated the relationship between teacher’s trust and academic advice relationships and job satisfaction, and perceived organizational support strengthened the relationship between teacher efficacy and job satisfaction. The article concludes by offering implications of the findings for both administrators and teachers as well as for the social capital, teaching efficacy, and teacher job satisfaction literatures.