The Chain Mediating Role of Teachers’ Job Stress in the Influence of Distributed School Leadership on Job Satisfaction: Evidence from China, the United States, England, and Australia

Abstract

Distributed leadership has been shown to improve teacher job satisfaction and reduce teacher job stress. However, few studies have thoroughly explored the indirect effects of distributed leadership on increasing the teachers’ burden in school administration and management, thereby increasing work stress, and decreasing job satisfaction. Data from the Teaching and Learning International Survey were analyzed to investigate the relationships among distributed school leadership, teachers’ job stress, and job satisfaction. A total of 3976 teachers from 198 junior high schools in Shanghai, 2560 teachers from 166 junior high schools in the United States, 2376 teachers from 157 junior high schools in England, and 3573 teachers from 238 junior high schools in Australia were selected and examined using structural equation modeling. The results revealed that distributed school leadership directly predicted teachers’ job satisfaction; teachers’ job stress had an independent mediating effect on distributed leadership and teachers’ job satisfaction, whereas teachers’ time spent participating in school leadership had no mediating effect. We discuss the benefits of distributed school leadership on teachers’ job satisfaction and the possible mechanisms for promoting it in practice.