Research in Human Development

ISSN: 1542-7609 (Print) 1542-7617 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hrhd20

Two Case Studies of Preschool Psychosocial Safety

Climates

Katherine M. Zinsser & Anthony Zinsser

To cite this article: Katherine M. Zinsser & Anthony Zinsser (2016) Two Case Studies of
Preschool Psychosocial Safety Climates, Research in Human Development, 13:1, 49-64, DOI:
10.1080/15427609.2016.1141278

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/15427609.2016.1141278

Published online: 01 Mar 2016.

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Research in Human Development, 13: 49–64, 2016
Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 1542-7609 print / 1542-7617 online
DOI: 10.1080/15427609.2016.1141278

Two Case Studies of Preschool Psychosocial Safety

Climates

Katherine M. Zinsser
University of Illinois at Chicago

Anthony Zinsser
A. Zinsser Consultancy

With the call from federal and state officials to increase access to high-quality early childhood edu-
cation only growing louder, programs continue to struggle to attract and support a workforce capable
of providing such instruction and care. One critical component of this support is the construction of a
workplace environment that teachers perceive as psychologically safe and in which they feel capable
of engaging in the challenging work of early childhood education. In the present set of case studies,
the authors explore the extent to which a previously developed model of psychosocial safety climate
applies to preschool contexts. Using teacher focus groups and administrator interviews the authors
present examples of directors’ management practices and center’s policies and procedures that reflect
a degree of valuing of teacher well-being and psychological safety. Additionally, the ways teachers’
experiences of the climate relate to their beliefs and behaviors in the classroom are explored.

Current state and federal policy initiatives to increase access to high-quality early childhood
education have emphasized the importance of cultivating a strong, qualified workforce (Nelson,
Main, & Kushton-Hoban, 2012; Whitebook, Phillips, & Howes, 2014). However, the early child-
hood educator’s occupation is consistently described as being marked by high levels of stress, low
pay, and decreased psychological health, which are critical barriers to high-quality instruction and
care (De Schipper, Riksen-Walraven, Geurts, & De Weerth, 2009; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009;
Whitaker, Becker, Herman, & Gooze, 2013). Efforts to increase children’s access to high-quality
care therefore must also attend to the working conditions of early educators. Although earlier
work linked supportive workplace climates to teachers’ job satisfaction (Jorde-Bloom, 1988),
the persistent reports of preschool teachers’ psychological health problems (e.g. Whitaker et al.,
2013) dictate that further study of teachers’ workplace experiences is necessary.
One critical aspect of a supportive workplace, and the focus of this special issue, is psycholog-
ical safety. Individuals who feel psychologically safe within an organization are able to engage
in challenging interpersonal tasks (sharing, learning, trying something new, etc.) because they
feel that such risk taking will not result in embarrassment, shame, or ridicule (Edmondson & Lei,
2014). Such a sense of safety is a critical component of remaining engaged at work, willing to

Address correspondence to Katherine M. Zinsser, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago, MC

285, 1007 W. Harrison St., Chicago, IL 60607. E-mail: kzinsser@uic.edu
50 ZINSSER AND ZINSSER

learn from mistakes, being receptive to feedback, and being able to support coworkers (for a full
review see Wanless, 2015 this issue). When applied to the workplace, employees in an organi-
zation perceive that policies, practices, and procedures are intended to protect worker well-being
and psychological safety, the organization is said to have a positive psychosocial safety climate
(PSC; Dollard & Bakker, 2010). Working in a preschool center with a psychosocially safe climate
may particularly enable teachers to engage in high-quality classroom practices around some of
the most emotionally demanding aspects of the job: managing children’s behavior and support-
ing their social and emotional growth. Within a positive PSC center, preschool teachers may feel
supported enough to implement new teaching practices. Being in such a workplace may bene-
fit teachers’ own emotional health and well-being at work, a critical component of high-quality
teaching (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009).
Our analysis of the PSC model in preschool centers makes use of a relational developmental
systems theory perspective in which human development is seen as the result of the relationship
between an individual and his or her setting, not merely the product of biology. When viewed as
complex emotional ecologies, preschool centers epitomize dynamic systems in which individuals
can affect the functioning of the whole center and are concurrently affected by other elements in
the center (coworkers, policies, procedures, etc.). Using this perspective, it is understood that for
children and adults alike no one thing leads to development. Instead behavior and development
are the result of combinations of interactions between a person and his or her context. Further, this
perspective puts forth the assumption of plasticity, or the potential for systemic change in one’s
development. Given that there are numerous individual-context relations that affect a person,
there will always be the potential for change. Specifically, this assumption aligns well with the
PSC model because it promotes the perception of a worker’s mental health as a resource to be
developed, not merely a problem to be managed.
The present study uses two case studies to explore psychosocial safety climate in preschool
settings: teachers’ experiences of psychological safety within these ecologies, teachers own con-
tributions to the climate, and the way their experience of the climate influences their subsequent
beliefs and behaviors in the classroom. We are especially interested in how perceiving and expe-
riencing a psychologically safe workplace supports systemic change for teachers, enabling them
to provide higher-quality care and instruction.

Working Conditions of Preschool Teachers

Although on the surface a typical preschool exudes joyfulness, the workplace experience of many
teachers is unfortunately less carefree. Prior research into early childhood education working
conditions has found these teachers to be underpaid (Whitebook, Phillips, & Howes, 2014), dis-
respected (Phillips, Lande, & Goldberg, 1990), and working in physically uncomfortable spaces
(Markon & LeBeau, 1994). In addition, preschool teachers have reported facing excessive job
demands, contentious coworker relationships, and limited opportunities for feedback and pro-
fessional growth (Reffett, 2009). It is therefore unsurprising that they leave the profession at
staggering rates (Whitebrook, 1999). Studies routinely link teachers’ work environments to their
emotional health and well-being (e.g., Halbesleben, 2006; Jorde-Bloom, 1988). Poorer social
support in larger center-based care programs contributes to teachers’ higher likelihood of being
diagnosed with depression as compared with peers working in smaller, more supportive home-
based or privately owned centers (Fish, 2008). Child care settings are often not structured to
 PRESCHOOL PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY CLIMATES 51

foster positive adult relationships (Jorde-Bloom, 1986), and the climate of these workplaces con-
tributes to teachers’ low morale, high stress, and burnout, ultimately resulting in more negative
emotional experiences and higher teacher turnover (Reffett, 2009; Stremmel, 1991). Teacher dis-
tress is of additional concern because of the possible ramifications it has on children. Although
direct studies of the effects of teacher psychological problems on children’s development are
limited, parallels can be drawn to studies of the negative effects of being raised by parents who
are depressed (e.g., Gelfand & Teti, 1990). Teachers’ stress in the classroom is positively corre-
lated with their use of less effective classroom management strategies (Clunies-Ross, Little, &
Kienhuis, 2008) and with children’s aggression and negative affectivity (Zinsser, Bailey, Curby,
Denham, & Bassett, 2013).
When teachers reported being treated unfairly by their supervisor, they were observed to dis-
play more anger toward children in the classroom (Mill & Romano-White, 1999). Teachers with
poorer organizational trust, a characteristic likely to contribute to teachers’ greater sense of psy-
chological safety, engage in less sharing, help seeking, and feedback seeking with colleagues
and supervisors (Kochanek, 2005). In turn, these teachers experience less mastery over behavior
and emotional challenges in their classroom. These recursive interactions contribute to teachers’
emotional burnout as teaching becomes less enjoyable, and they feel less efficacious (Goddard,
Hoy, & Hoy, 2004). By studying how directors and teachers coconstruct these workplace climates
and make meaning of the events that occur within the center, we aim to better support the early
childhood workforce.

Psychosocial Safety Climate in Preschool

Teachers’ perceptions of support from administrators and experience of organizational trust

are critical components of Dollard’s psychosocial safety climate model (2007). In longitudi-
nal studies with primary and secondary teachers, Dollard found that schools with greater PSC
placed fewer work and emotional demands on teachers and provided greater resources (Dollard
& Bakkar, 2010). Furthermore, PSC was negatively related to teachers’ psychological health
problems (emotional exhaustion and psychological distress) and positively related to teach-
ers’ engagement through these demands and resources, respectively. Finally, even when greater
demands existed, teachers in schools with greater PSC experienced fewer psychological health
problems as compared with peers in less psychosocially safe schools.
To our knowledge, PSC has not previously been explored in preschool settings. Given the
increasing concerns regarding preschool teacher psychological health (e.g., Whitaker et al., 2013)
and the critical role teachers’ emotions play in supporting children’s social, emotional, and aca-
demic learning (Jones, Bouffard, & Weissbourd, 2013), we believe that it is important to examine
the potential role PSC can play in supporting preschool teachers’ psychological health and safety
and high-quality teaching. PSC has been operationalized through employee surveys in multi-
ple industries, and a confirmatory factor analyses by Hall, Dollard, and Coward (2010) yielded
four principle components: (1) management support and commitment (management’s concern for
teachers’ psychological well-being and the enactment of policies and practices that stress preven-
tion), (2) management priority (management’s consideration of employee psychological health
to be as important as their productivity and a priority of the organization), (3) organizational
communication (accessibility of information to about issues related to employee psychological
health), and (4) organizational participation and involvement (involvement of employees and
supervisors in matters related to stress prevention and psychological safety).
52 ZINSSER AND ZINSSER

PSC reflects a communicated management position about the value and priority of worker
psychological health and safety in the workplace and is primarily driven by management values
and beliefs. As center directors are largely responsible for the design of jobs, and the allocation of
relative demands and access to resources, and they set, enforce, and reinforce norms of interaction
in a center (Cosner, 2009), we believe that they are in the position to significantly contribute
to teachers’ sense of connectedness and security—psychological safety—enabling directors and
teachers to work together toward high-quality practice.

The Present Study

Increasing our knowledge about what directors do and how they contribute to the instructional
behaviors of teachers will support future research promoting teacher well-being and retention,
ultimately benefiting children and families. In two case studies, we present teachers’ and admin-
istrators’ perceptions and experiences related to their workplace climates and their support of
children’s social and emotional development. The case study approach enables us to retain the
person-by-context relationship as our unit of analysis. We have focused our study on PSC because
teachers’ ability to engage in the challenging work of supporting young children’s development
emerges from the interaction between perceptions and contextual experiences. In line with the
focus of this special issue, we hypothesize that policies and management practices in preschools
foster a perceived psychosocial safety climate that either supports or detracts from a teacher’s
psychological health and engagement.

METHOD

Two Head Start centers were recruited from an ongoing study of social-emotional learning in
preschool settings. We intentionally selected these centers because, as part of Head Start, the
nation’s largest early childhood education program for families living below the poverty line,
these centers share similar organizational structures, have similar resources, and adhere to the
same performance standards. Demographic information for teachers from each center participat-
ing in the larger study is presented in Table 1. Although individual child data were not collected
as part of this study, both centers served predominantly minority children who live below 130%
of the federal poverty line, and are between the ages of zero and 5 years. Pseudonyms have been
used to protect identities of teachers, administrators and centers.

Case 1: Hope Junction Head Start

Hope Junction (HJ) is located in the suburbs of a major metropolitan center on the East
Coast. The center is housed in two buildings, one serving approximately 150 Head Start stu-
dents (ages 3–5) in nine classrooms, and the other serving approximately 35 Early Head Start
children in center-based care (birth to age 3). The center employs 25 full-time teachers, five
part-time teachers, and 30 nonteaching staff including family services workers and three mental
health/social-emotional consultants. The center is funded through a grant to the County Office
of Families and Children. The director of HJ, Ms. Beth, is in her late forties and has worked as
 PRESCHOOL PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY CLIMATES 53

TABLE 1
Full Sample Teacher Demographics

Hope Junction % South County %

Female 100 100

White 25 90
Black 75 10
Education level
Associate’s degree 50 10
Bachelor’s degree 50 70
Master’s degree 0 20
Years of experience
4–10 years 50 20
10–15 years 25 30
More than 15 years 25 50
Earning more than $40,000/year 50 50

an early childhood education director for more than 20 years. Prior to working as a Head Start
director, she worked for the county public school system coordinating care for children with
emotional disabilities, and later with Head Start as an inclusion specialist, rising to the position
of Head Start director in 2005. Ms. Beth is supported by Ms. Carroll, the assistant director of HJ
Head Start. Ms. Carroll primarily oversees and coordinates lesson planning, manages children’s
Individualized Education Plans, and conducts teacher professional development and evaluation
for the center. She previously split her time between the Head Start and Early Head Start centers
but recently was transitioned to be at HJ full-time.

Case 2: South County Head Start

South County (SC) serves approximately 350 children in 17 Head Start classrooms and three
Early Head Start rooms. The center is housed in a former elementary school building and is
administered through the SC Public School system, which serves suburban and rural commu-
nities in the Mid-Atlantic region. The center employs 22 full-time teachers and an additional
48 nonteaching staff including family services workers and one full-time mental health consul-
tant. The director of SC, Ms. June, is in her midfifties, and has more than 20 years of experience
in the field of early childhood education. Prior to becoming a Head Start director she worked as a
classroom teacher in Kindergarten through third-grade classrooms and as the assistant principal
in a SC public elementary school. SC also employs Ms. Anna, who serves as Ms. June’s assistant
director, though she was originally hired to serve as the instructional and disabilities coordinator
for county special education and inclusion services. She transitioned to administration 2 years
ago, and there is still confusion among directors and teachers about her exact responsibilities
besides “helping” Ms. June.

Procedure

We conducted an embedded multicase study (Yin, 2013) wherein participant units (center direc-
tors, assistant directors, and teachers) were collected and regarded separately within each center
54 ZINSSER AND ZINSSER

to ensure participants felt comfortable to speak freely. Center directors were recruited first, and
then assistant directors and teachers were invited to participate. One director and one assistant
director were interviewed at each center (N = 4 administrators). These interviews lasted between
60 and 90 minutes. Additionally, at each center, a focus group of six teachers was convened
(N = 12 teachers) during children’s nap times (lasting approximately 90 minutes each). Although
all teachers at the centers were invited to participate in the larger study, only lead teachers for
whom substitutes could be arranged were able to participate in the focus groups. All interviews
and focus groups were audiotaped for transcription and coding. The first author, at the time a
doctoral candidate in developmental psychology, was the primary interviewer and moderator.
The second author, an industrial-organizational psychologist, assisted with the director and assis-
tant director interviews. All focus groups and interviews were conducted late in 2012. Interview
questions focused on leaders’ perceptions of the connections between teachers’ feelings and chil-
dren’s social-emotional learning, and on the role of leaders in the establishment and maintenance
of positive center climates. The semistructured focus group questions centered on teachers’ emo-
tional experiences at work and perceptions of workplace climate, their experiences of support
from leaders, and their expectations for support. To more directly assess prioritization (a com-
ponent of the PSC model), center directors were also asked to rank 10 common early childhood
education director responsibilities by importance. The responsibilities list was previously piloted
(Zinsser, Curby, & Ullrich, in press) and items and relative ranks are presented in Table 2.

Case Study Analysis

Audio files from each interview were transcribed and checked for accuracy by two researchers.
We utilized direct content analyses (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) procedures to organize our exami-
nation of the cases. Using the existing research on PSC, we used the major themes of management
support and commitment, management prioritization, organizational communication, and organi-
zational participation and involvement (Cox & Cheyne, 2000; Dollard & Bakker, 2010; Hall et al.,
2010). Operational definitions of these categories were drawn from the PSC scale by Hall and col-
leagues (2010). Although transcripts from each employee level (directors, assistant directors, and

TABLE 2
Director Ranking of Job Responsibilities from Most Important (10) to Least Important (1)

Hope South Relative

Director Responsibilities Junction County Difference

Being available for parents. 5 8 3

Implementing innovative and research-based curriculum. 10 6 4
Assessing children’s progress and achievement. 6 5 1
Evaluating teachers. 3 4 1
Maintaining accurate and complete financial records for my center. 1 9 8
Monitoring compliance with regional codes and licensing requirements. 2 2 0
Promoting academic achievement of students. 7 7 0
Provide a positive social-emotional environment for students. 9 10 1
Providing a positive work environment for staff. 8 3 5
Providing professional development to teachers. 4 1 3
 PRESCHOOL PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY CLIMATES 55

teachers) were analyzed separately, the description of individuals’ experiences interacting with
coworkers remained the unit of analysis. Next the authors discussed discourse from each case that
aligned with items from the PSC scale and categories were retained that had broad support across
interviews and focus groups within each center. Quotes were selected that succinctly represented
each theme.

Hope Junction

Management Support & Commitment

Interviews with Ms. Beth and Ms. Carroll revealed several aspects of the leadership of HJ that
contributed to teachers’ experience of a psychologically safe workplace. Ms. Beth noted that by
hiring three part-time mental health specialists who provide “support for the teachers . . . helping
children learn how to interact and self-regulate,” she was committed to preventing distress among
her teachers related to behavior management. The director and assistant director emphasized how
their collaborative procedures to manage challenging child behavior were intended to prevent
teachers from feeling isolated with an insurmountable problem. Ms. Carroll described how, “if
teachers have concerns about children . . . whether it’s social-emotional or development, we sit
down, myself and the . . . family services coordinator, the health coordinator, and the mental
health specialists . . . put some strategies in place.” By her description, the coordinated collab-
orative efforts are intended to remove some of the burden of problem solving and investigatory
work from the teacher; it is a shared effort to identify and prioritize the causes of, and strategies
for managing, social-emotional and behavioral concerns. Ms. Beth additionally discussed mak-
ing staffing decisions to ensure that teachers felt sufficiently supported. She noted that previously
she had felt that teachers were inadequately supported and had reallocated financial resources
to enable Ms. Carroll to be in the center full-time (rather than splitting her time across multiple
centers). Ms. Carroll reported that now she’s “in and out of classrooms all day long” and able to
provide a respite for teachers at any time.
Although the teachers at HJ agreed that directors’ interactions with teachers can significantly
affect their feelings at work, they did not feel that the directors were committed to their emotional
needs. Many teachers expressed frustration with the lack of director visibility, saying “you don’t
see them . . . they don’t spend much time in our classrooms . . . unless they need something.”
Another teacher commented “We’re taught to catch a child doing good, it’s not the same for us
. . . you don’t get enough reinforcement.”

Management Priority

Ms. Beth’s relative ranking of her various priorities as a Head Start director can be found in
Table 2. Most relevant to this discussion, she ranked providing a positive work environment as
her third highest priority (after providing a positive social-emotional environment for students
and implementing research based curriculum). Ms. Beth’s overarching belief in the importance
of fostering a climate in which children and teachers thrive was also evident in her interview
responses. When hiring new staff and teachers, Ms. Beth considers any newcomers’ impact on
her current employees and the overall center climate, saying that when interviewing she asks
herself, “if they’re not warm, nurturing and willing to have fun, then how are they going to be
56 ZINSSER AND ZINSSER

able to model that for the kids?” She further emphasized this prioritization by ending the interview
saying that she “wanted to ensure that staff are safe, kids are safe, and that what [the staff are]
doing is valued.”
Despite Ms. Beth’s stated priority of helping teachers feel valued, participants in the focus
group expressed feeling overwhelmed and frustrated by the amount of paperwork, assessments,
and lesson planning reports they were expected to complete regularly and without sufficient plan-
ning time. Yet teachers resoundingly agreed that they benefitted from Ms. Beth’s prioritization
of hiring teachers who contribute to the positive climate. They reported generally positive and
mutually participatory workplace relationships, saying teachers are “all supportive of each other’s
emotions and feelings . . . I truly enjoy working with my coworkers.”

Organizational Communication

Ms. Beth and Ms. Carroll emphasized that they had open-door policies and that this enabled
teachers to feel comfortable coming to them with concerns, either personal or professional.
Likewise, many teachers agreed that they felt comfortable speaking with either administrator
and knew which channels to use to report concerns. There was, however, limited discussion by
any HJ participant of explicit communication strategies about psychological safety issues, and the
teachers described getting piecemeal and inconsistent information. One teacher reported always
having lingering questions after semiannual program meetings, “How is it going to affect us? We
don’t hear any details about what we can do or what’s going on with [the center].”

Organizational Participation & Involvement

There was no discussion in the interviews of intentional involvement of teachers in health and
safety initiatives (including stress management); however, there were mixed feelings in the focus
group about how well administrators listened to teachers’ concerns. Despite feeling comfortable
going to talk with their directors, several teachers implied that such communications often felt
futile. As one teacher said about seeking out a director, “when I want to say something to you, you
may want to turn away because you don’t want to hear it.” Similarly, teachers’ attempts to reverse
a recent change to the telecommunication system in the center appear to have been unattended to
by the administrators. The new system enables parents to skip the switch board and call directly
into their classrooms. Teachers reported that now classroom phones ring frequently, disrupting
their interactions with children. These disruptions distressed teachers because, as one teacher
said, “you’re trying to listen [to the parent] and regulate what’s going on [in the classroom] and
it’s impossible.” They reported to Ms. Carroll that the pressure they feel now to attend to every
parent’s call “takes away some of the fun” and “the connections with the children” and reported
that Ms. Carroll’s response to their complaints was merely that it was a “county decision” that
they had no control over.

South County Head Start

Management Support & Commitment

Interviews with Ms. June and Ms. Anna further contributed to our understanding of how lead-
ership practices described in the PSC model affected teachers’ perceptions of their workplace.
 PRESCHOOL PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY CLIMATES 57

With regards to demonstrating commitment by providing structural supports for managing teacher
stress, there is one full-time social worker who serves as a mental health consultant at SC. As Ms.
Anna described, the center also had established procedures to follow “if they have a child who’s
having a meltdown.” She went on to explain that there were three individuals at the center trained
to respond to such situations: the social worker, Ms. Anna, and Ms. June, and when a call came
from a classroom for help, they “go running.” Ms. Anna explained the intent is for teachers to
know that “someone will come and help.”
There was a significant disconnect between the intentions and teachers’ experiences of the
structural supports, however. With regard for the procedures for managing challenging behaviors,
teachers felt inadequately supported by the call system, saying there were often multiple incidents
taking place concurrently (in fact, Ms. Anna’s interview was interrupted because of two simul-
taneous calls from teachers), resulting in many of their calls going unanswered. One explained,
“It happens all the time, you call for help and there’s nobody to help you.” Left without support,
teachers indicated that they occasionally felt physically unsafe in their classrooms. One teacher
commented, “last year was really bad, someone got hurt in my class every day . . . I had a kid
bite me . . . my co-teacher got a black eye, it happens all the time.”
In addition to supports around child behavior, teachers viewed other policies and procedures
as indicative of a lack of support for their well-being. A much lauded, new online lesson planning
tool, recently implemented at SC, enabled Ms. June to evaluate teacher plans electronically with-
out necessitating a visit to the classroom. As one teacher pointed out, however, Ms. June’s ability
to evaluate the teacher’s future plans without understanding the context of the classroom put the
teacher on the defensive: “[Ms. June] didn’t come into my room but [she’s] saying I didn’t do
these things and that made me feel frustrated.” Furthermore, teachers lamented that the feedback
doled out on the electronic lesson plans was predominantly negative. As one teacher put it, “the
feedback is always ‘there’s something wrong’ . . . You don’t get feedback when you’re doing the
right thing.” The negative focus in the feedback only presented opportunities to catch teachers
underperforming, leaving teachers to perceive their workplaces as unsupportive.

Management Priority

Ms. June’s ranked teacher well-being comparatively low on her rankings of job responsibili-
ties (Table 2). Ms. June ranked fiscal record keeping as her most important priority and ranked the
positive work environment for teachers as her third lowest priority (only outranking monitoring
compliance and providing professional development to staff). When asked how she, in a manage-
ment position, affected the emotional climate of her center, Ms. June replied, “you model it of
course,” but later described her approach differently: “you call people down . . . with a look or
a conversation or maybe an improvement plan.” At SC, Ms. June focuses her “care and concern
[on] the children” and reinforces child outcomes with the punitive “calling down” of teachers.
Such statements may indicate to teachers that only productivity directly related to children’s
progress is important, not the emotions of the teaching staff.
Likewise, many teachers perceived Ms. June as prioritizing academic aspects of school readi-
ness at the expense of teacher and child social and emotional gains, saying that Ms. June’s
curricular demands, “are not realistic.” One teacher described feeling anxious about meeting
Ms. June’s daily academic curriculum demands (introducing 20 new vocabulary words and read-
ing three books each day) and feeling unsupported in her desire to spend time comforting upset
58 ZINSSER AND ZINSSER

children. She said that instead Ms. June expected her to “shove the [crying] kid off my lap and
go read another book to the class.” In SC, teachers additionally felt too overburdened with job
demands to provide peer-to-peer support, “We all used to help each other,” one summarized, but
“I don’t have the time,” another lamented in response.
Teachers unanimously agreed that Ms. June’s approach to evaluation was intimidating and
emotionally taxing. In the PSC model, such stress inducing experiences indicate that managers are
not committed to supporting teachers’ psychosocial health. In her interview, Ms. June emphasized
the need for close monitoring and evaluation of teachers, saying, “These teachers need to know
you’re checking behind them . . . if [the teachers] don’t think I’m going to come around and check
then [they] don’t think I care.” Rather than employing an approach that was designed to prevent
stress for teachers, Ms. June’s approach to evaluations seemed to be perceived by teachers as
more authoritarian. When teachers were asked if they wanted administrators to spend more time
in their classrooms, there was a resounding “No.” However, further discussion revealed that the
teachers mainly objected to the “approach” to evaluations and would prefer if Ms. June and Ms.
Anna did not “come with a clipboard and pen” but instead came “with a book to read” or came
“to play [with the children] for a while.”
One teacher described feeling frustrated and disappointed in herself as an educator. She is
driven by a desire to “give the kids everything” and explained that she views the weekly lesson
plans as her director’s state of “what you need to do” to adequately support her students. She
said that if she did not manage to get everything done in a week, she is “doing a disservice to the
kids” but that by “trying to cram all of it in is doing a disservice as well.” The prioritization of
academic achievement at SC appears to challenge teachers’ own sense of efficacy in the classroom
and makes it harder for them to engage in their work.

Organizational Communication

Communication at SC appears strained, and there is no evident pathway through which teach-
ers can easily convey concerns or needs to the director. One teacher described feeling “on the
spot,” like she had to “defend herself” whenever she sought advice or assistance from the direc-
tor. The recent transition of Ms. Anna from disabilities coordinator to assistant director, however,
seemed to be helping teachers feel somewhat more supported. Ms. Anna was repeatedly referred
to by the teachers as “approachable,” “understanding,” and “empathic.” One teacher said of Ms.
Anna, “I know that I can go and speak [to her] candidly . . . and I know that she truly listens and
tries to help me . . . . It’s validating for us when you feel that your director is really hearing you.”
Consequently, teachers indicated that they sought out Ms. Anna over Ms. June whenever possible.
No portions of the SC director or assistant director interviews were coded under this header.

Organizational Participation & Involvement

The center had experienced several major changes over the years leading up to the inter-
views, and by Ms. June’s report the teachers have not been shy about raising concerns after
she changed lead and assistant teacher pairings: “They were not happy about it . . . they are angry
because of it and taking it out on me and that’s ok.” However, despite acceptance of teachers’
feelings, Ms. June did not welcome their involvement in decision making around such emo-
tionally charged issues, saying, “even if they had input, [the director] still makes the decisions.”
 PRESCHOOL PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY CLIMATES 59

Alignment with this PSC model component was also evident in Ms. June’s description of a recent
series of assessment changes. After experiencing the backlash from teachers who “freaked” when
she implemented a new assessment tool many years prior, she designed a plan that intentionally
involved teachers in the development of assessment tools. She perceived this process as empow-
ering because “everyone had their hands in it,” and she reported teachers responding positively
to the collaborative effort. However, Ms. June went on to explain that despite seeing a positive
reaction to this collaborative approach, she just recently selected a new tool which includes online
lesson planning and assessments without teacher collaboration. As before, she reported that the
transition met significant pushback from teachers and admits that “the whole thing has been a
huge change.” Rather than being involved in the assessment process, teachers reported feeling
caught off guard. They were not given forewarning of the change, were not involved in the selec-
tion of the tool, and, according to those in the focus group, were provided with only a one hour
introductory training and were handed a manual “days before the start of the new school year.”

DISCUSSION

The two case studies presented above represent an initial exploration of the psychosocial safety
climate model in preschool settings. Mixed evidence of the four components of PSC were found
across the two sites with the components of management support and commitment and man-
agement priority being most robustly supported. However, there were strong indications from
administrator interviews and teacher focus groups that directors’ management practices and
center’s policies and procedures can reflect a degree of valuing of worker well-being and psycho-
logical safety in preschool settings as Dollard and Bakker (2010) found previously in elementary
and secondary settings. In our case studies we additionally found evidence that teachers’ experi-
ence of their center’s PSC can influence their own feelings and their classroom practices. The
present case studies were not intended to provide contrasting examples. In fact, neither site
showed significant evidence of all four components of PSC. Instead, each case provides rich
details about how aspects of the model may operate in preschool settings. Consistent across sites
was the differing perceptions of administrators and teachers, and this was expected given the dif-
ferent meanings individuals construct from their interactions with the same context. Teachers and
administrators unsurprisingly experienced aspects of their centers differently and thus perceived
different degrees of psychosocial risk. In this discussion we briefly review evidence of each com-
ponent of PSC from each site and then discuss other relevant factors not captured by PSC and
future directions.

Psychosocial Safety Climate

Management Support and Commitment

The PSC component of support and commitment describes management’s concern for teach-
ers’ psychological well-being and the enactment of policies and practices that stress prevention
(Cox & Cheyne, 2000; Dollard & Bakker, 2010). Director interview responses that were indica-
tive of this across both sites primarily described implementing structural supports for teachers,
especially around behavior management. At HJ, Ms. Beth has made staffing decisions around
60 ZINSSER AND ZINSSER

adequately supporting teachers, and both HJ administrators highlighted the collaborative proac-
tive supports to help teachers work with challenging children and preventing distress. In SC,
there were also behavior management procedures discussed, but these seemed more reactionary—
responding to calls for help by the teachers rather than working to prevent teacher distress. This
possibly indicates a degree of adaptive presentism (Hargreaves & Shirley, 2009) where external
pressures result in immediate concerns being perceived as most important. Despite these dif-
ferences, teachers at both centers reported feeling inadequately supported. At HJ, the teachers
equated support with visibility—wishing that the administrators were able to be more emotion-
ally supportive by observing and reinforcing their hard work. At SC, the teachers expressed great
disappointment with the structural supports for managing behavior and lesson planning, to the
point where teachers felt physically unsafe in their classrooms and defensive about their teaching
practices.

Management Priority

The PSC component of management priority describes management’s consideration of

employee psychological health to be as important as their productivity and a priority of the orga-
nization (Cox & Cheyne, 2000; Pronovost et al., 2003). At HJ there was interview and director
ranking evidence that Ms. Beth did care about her teachers’ emotional experiences at work and
wanted them to feel valued. Despite feeling overburdened by job demands, HJ teachers reported
generally positive workplace relationships and did not appear to hold substantial animosity toward
Ms. Beth or the center. Teachers at SC also reported feeling pressured to meet high job demands,
but unlike HJ teachers, they appeared more emotionally exhausted and unable to engage in their
work fully. Ms. June prioritized child outcomes over and above teacher positive workplace expe-
riences and teachers were well aware of this. Based on prior studies of teacher well-being, we
could anticipate that the emotional stress experienced by SC teachers could degrade their positive
interactions with children (Mill & Romano-White, 1999). The contrast of these two centers with
regards to this component could potentially exemplify the moderating effect of PSC described
by Dollard and Bakker (2010). When there were high demands, teachers in the center with a
manager who communicated valuing worker psychological safety appeared less distressed.

Organizational Communication

This PSC component encompasses the degree to which employees have access to information
about issues related to their psychological health (Cox & Cheyne, 2000; Hall et al., 2010). At HJ,
both administrators operate open-door policies, a key component of communication according
to Cox and Cheyne (2000), and felt that teachers were comfortable speaking with them about
a variety of issues. Although teachers agreed they felt comfortable raising concerns, there were
still communication gaps that left teachers feeling uneasy about future events. At SC, unsupport-
ive communication experiences with Ms. June led teachers to turn to Ms. Anna for support, an
arrangement with which they seem amenable. However, teachers’ reliance on Ms. Anna at SC
may in turn further reduce Ms. June’s presence and visibility in their workplace and may have
contributed to teachers’ perceptions of Ms. June as being out of touch with classrooms. Of the
four components, communication has the most limited evidence in the transcripts. Unlike in tra-
ditional business settings, where the PSC scale was tested (Hall et al., 2010), preschool centers
 PRESCHOOL PSYCHOSOCIAL SAFETY CLIMATES 61

may have more informal communication strategies, leaving teachers to have individualized expe-
riences. For example, though teachers may meet regularly with administrators, both members
of a teaching team (lead and assistants) may not be able to leave the classroom for such meet-
ings simultaneously—thus lending one to receive more or different information than the other.
Another reason for this limited evidence may be the line of questioning developed for the larger
research study—more focused on emotional experiences of teachers in their preschool contexts
than channels of reporting. Further research into communication styles and policies in preschools
will be necessary.

Organizational Participation & Involvement

The final component of the PSC model describes employees’ involvement in matters related
to stress prevention and psychological safety (Dollard & Bakker, 2010), including the degree to
which their concerns are listened to and addressed by management. At HJ, although administra-
tors did not raise topics related to this component directly, teachers felt that their concerns were
diminished or dismissed too easily and that there were no formal opportunities for them to be
involved in resolving concerns. Conversely, at SC, Ms. June had intentionally involved teachers
in an aspect of their work that was often stress inducing (assessments) to empower them. One
might have expected that this experience would lead her to involve teachers going forward, but
her approach to managing the most recent change appears to have been fairly insensitive to the
psychological effect on teachers and teacher reported this caused them distress and frustration.

Additional Contextual Factors

Although all Head Start teachers, including those participating in this study, are faced with similar
job demands related to preparing at-risk children for kindergarten, their centers vary significantly.
The present study focused solely on the ways that PSC may play a role in explaining these differ-
ential experiences and subsequent feelings and behaviors, but it would be negligent not to address
the other contributors raised in the focus groups, specifically social supports, environmental fac-
tors, and director differences. It was apparent in the ways that HJ teachers talked about each other
(e.g., in the HJ priority section above) that there was a high degree of peer-to-peer social support
in the center. Although there was some evidence of a more positive PSC in HJ, some of the bene-
fits to teachers’ psychological health and engagement in teaching could instead be contributed by
their peer relationships. In contrast, teachers at SC explicitly bemoaned their loss of peer support
(e.g., in the SC priority section above). Future studies will need to further explore these contex-
tual differences in desire for and access to social support in light of the history of autonomy in
education (Little, 1990).
Secondly, there were obvious physical differences in the centers that may have resulted in dif-
ferential PSC experiences. SC was a larger center in enrollment and physical space. Classrooms
seemed physically and psychologically isolated, with some teachers feeling “cut off” from their
colleagues and others teaching in outbuildings not connected to the main school building. These
environmental factors likely contributed to the administrators playing a reactive role rather than
a proactive role in supporting teachers.
Finally, the PSC of each center may have additionally been influenced by the contexts in which
the centers themselves operated and the subsequent pressures on the administrators. Although we
62 ZINSSER AND ZINSSER

were not able to measure these factors, we learned in Ms. June’s interview that she was treated by
the school board as a principal and thus was attending trainings and meetings with elementary and
secondary administrators regularly. This, in combination with her prior experience as an elemen-
tary vice principal, may have shaped her priorities to align with county goals. Conversely, HJ’s
funding source may allow Ms. Beth more flexibility and she may be exposed to less academic
pressure.

Limitations & Future Directions

It is important to acknowledge that there are inherent limitations of this study. First, with qualita-
tive research it is important to be aware of the possibility of participant reactivity and its impact on
validity. It is unrealistic to actually eliminate the role researchers play in an individual’s experi-
ence of the setting (Maxwell, 2005); however, we made efforts to limit its influence by moderating
focus groups and interviews without using leading questions or giving verbal or nonverbal cues as
to approval or disapproval of various responses. The other potential threat many qualitative stud-
ies face has to do with research bias. Research bias refers to the tendency for particular selections
of data to appear to stand out to researchers (Miles & Huberman, 1994) when they support one’s
existing theory. We have additionally made efforts to reduce the impact of this bias by seeking
out contradictory evidence to our initial interpretations of the data. The case study nature of this
design with multiple informants contributing to our consideration of broader contextual factors
beyond the coding structure additionally helped us restrain our potential biases.
Together, these case studies indicate that the PSC model may apply similarly in preschool
settings as it has previously in elementary and secondary ones. Future research will be needed
to directly link each component of the PSC to teachers’ abilities to engage in high-quality and
emotionally sensitive teaching and overall psychological health. Additionally, links to positive
child academic and social and emotional outcomes will further underscore the importance of
PSC. As one teacher concluded in the HJ focus group, “kids are not going to get the benefit of
good teachers if [Ms. Beth] does not start putting that back into [her] teachers . . . we’re human;
we’re going to fall apart.” Managing the dynamic emotional ecologies of preschool centers, for
children and teachers, will be a necessary component of any future plan to expand access to high-
quality preschool, and the present study provides initial support for the PSC model as one way to
evaluate the degree to which preschool climates support teachers’ psychological safety.

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