‘Candle for the People’: An Examination of Teacher Burnout, Early-Teacher Attrition, and Teacher Efficacy in the Finnish Educational Context

Abstract

An exploration of the central pillars of the Finnish education system gives a unique context to investigate the topic of teacher burnout with particular attention on the concerning trend of early-teacher attrition. Finland’s education system holds many of the values and systemic structures that limit the risk factors associated with teacher burnout but also opens up unique cultural boundaries and discourses surrounding normative teacher identities. The pressures on Finnish teachers to perform at the highest level create both an environment in which teachers are given ultimate autonomy and trust, but at the cost of damaging self-narratives that see weakness as a sign of incongruency between their own vision of themselves as educators and the culturally defined ideal that constantly follows them.