







































 

 

 

 

 

The Status Quo, Sources and Influencing 

Factors of Professional Pressure Faced by 

Preschool Teachers in Rural China: An 

Empirical Study Based on Multiple Counties in 

Hubei Province

Xin Gong, Caixing Niu, Jing Wang 

 
Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, Hubei, China

Abstract. The professional pressure of preschool teachers in rural China 

is closely related to the stability of the teaching staff and the develop-

ment of children. A study of 734 teachers in 155 rural preschools from 
three national-level poverty-stricken counties and one non-poverty coun-

ty in Hubei Province showed that current rural preschool teachers are 
facing greater professional pressure. Approximately 44.47% thought 

that the pressure is high, but has not yet reached the level of high burn-

out; non-poverty county preschool teachers have relatively high pres-
sure. According to the Demand-Control-Support (DCS) model, the main 

pressure stems from the work requirements of children and parents, es-

pecially parents’ excessive emphasis on children’s safety, knowledge, 

and skills. The results of the Ordered Probit Model showed that the in-

fluencing factors of preschool teachers’ professional pressure in rural 
preschools in China include work factors such as workload and the 

number of children in difficulty; control factors like perseverance and 

professional identity; support factors such as staffing status, salary satis-
faction, family support, and work support; as well as demographic vari-

ables such as age and household registration type (Hukou); and certain 
inter-county differences exist. Therefore, we recommend that the gov-

ernment, society, and preschools establish effective incentive and re-

straint mechanisms to reduce the professional pressure of preschool 
teachers in terms of salary, social status, parental guidance, workload, 

and stress training, and improve their ability to cope with pressure. 

Meanwhile, more focus need to be given on teachers who are for the first 
year preschool, older in age, lacking staffing status, no non-agricultural 

household registration, and overloading working. 



Gong et al. The Professional Pressure Faced by Preschool Teachers in Rural China. 

Vol.6, No.1, 2020 716 

Best Evid Chin Edu 2020; 6(1):715-738. 

Doi: 10.15354/bece.20.ar070. 

How to Cite: Gong, X., Niu, C., & Wang, J. (2020). The status quo, sources and 

influencing factors of professional pressure faced by preschool teachers in rural 

China: An empirical study based on multiple counties in Hubei province. Best Evi-

dence in Chinese Education, 6(1):715-738. 

Keywords: Rural China; Preschool Teachers; Professional Pressure; Influencing 

Factors

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

About the Authors: Caixing Niu, School of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, Hubei, 

China. Email: 1508932191@qq.com 

Jing Wang, School of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, Hubei, China. Email: 

936664837@qq.com 
Correspondence to: Xin Gong, Associate Professor, School of Education, Central China Normal University, Wu-
han 430079, Hubei, China. Email: gongxin@mail.ccnu.edu.cn 

Funding: This study was supported by the Humanities and Social Science Research Youth Fund Project of the 
Ministry of Education "Research on the Source and Flow of Preschool Teachers in Poor Rural Areas in Hubei 

Province" (16YJCZH022). 

Conflict of Interests: None. 
 

© 2020 Insights Publisher. All rights reserved. 

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Crea-

tive Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-

nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided 

the original work is attributed by the Insights Publisher. 



Gong et al. The Professional Pressure Faced by Preschool Teachers in Rural China. 

Vol.6, No. 1, 2020 717 

Question 

OR the survival and development of rural preschool teachers, it is not only nec-

essary to pay attention to their performance and ability, but also to their mental 

life and professional pressure. The professional pressure of teachers is also the 

so-called work pressure of teachers. It is an unpleasant and complex negative emotional 

experience that occurs to teachers due to the continuous action of various threatening 

stimuli in the teacher’s professional environment, such as tension, frustration and de-

pression (Kyriacou, 1987), and the subsequent psychological and physical discomfort 

(Yao, 2005). From a global perspective, teachers have always been regarded as one of 

the most stressful professions (Boyle et al., 1995). The work pressure of university 

teachers mainly comes from the dual tasks of scientific research and teaching; the pres-

sure of middle school teachers mostly comes from the pressure of students’ academic 

performance, especially the pressure of higher-level entrance examinations; but the 

safety and behavior are the main sources of pressure for elementary school teachers (Li 

et al., 2011). Studies have shown that the negative effects of teacher professional pres-

sure are generally greater than the positive effects. Excessive professional pressure can 

easily lead to emotional instability, affect their physical health and increase negative 

behaviors. For example, nearly half of university teachers believe that stress affects the 

quality of research and teaching (Miller et al., 2011); The stress of elementary and mid-

dle school teachers not only damages their health and reduces the quality of life, but 

also leads to absenteeism, resignation, or early retirement (Tsouloupas et al., 2010), In 

addition, the pressure of teachers is easily transmitted to students (Oberle & Schonert-

Reichl, 2016), thus affecting student development (Herman et al., 2018). 

Due to the age characteristics of young children and their lack of independence, 

they are easily influenced by teachers. At this stage, teachers’ professional pressure has 

a greater negative effect, and it is of great practical significance to pay attention to pre-

school teachers’ professional pressure. Preschool teachers are considered one of the 

most stressful professions (Curbow et al., 2000; Moriarty et al., 2001). Excessive pro-

fessional pressure affects preschool teachers’ professional identity, happiness and health, 

teacher-child relationship, quality of classroom care and education, and children’s de-

velopment, especially children’s social and emotional development (Lu & Han, 2006; 

Jeon, L., 2018; Pakarinen et al., 2010; Whitaker et al., 2015). Professional pressure af-

fects the stability of the teaching team, and high pressure is often the main reason lead-

ing to the resignation of preschool teachers. Excessive work pressure often causes 

teachers to produce burnout, lose their enthusiasm for work, and even begin to hate and 

fear preschool education. This may further affect the quality of education and teaching. 

At the same time, the working atmosphere and status of preschool teachers will also 

affect teacher cognition (Hur et al., 2016). 

Generally speaking, there are abundant researches on professional pressure in 

the Chinese literature, but there are only ten empirical reports on preschool teachers, 

and there are fewer articles on professional pressure for rural preschool teachers in pov-

erty-stricken areas. The research in this field mainly covers four aspects: the first is to 

F 



Gong et al. The Professional Pressure Faced by Preschool Teachers in Rural China. 

Vol.6, No. 1, 2020 718 

study the professional pressure itself and summarize the current situation and sources; 

the second is to explore the relationship between psychological capital, competence, 

organizational support, professional pressure and professional happiness from a psycho-

logical perspective; the third is to analyze the life state of preschool teachers from the 

perspective of spiritual life, and takes professional pressure as one of the indicators; the 

fourth is to study professional pressure from job burnout, taking professional pressure 

as an influencing factor of its occurrence. From these studies, the professional pressure 

of Chinese preschool teachers is not low, and the overall level of pressure is higher than 

that of moderate pressure. For example, a questionnaire survey of 302 preschool teach-

ers in Sichuan, Shanxi, Guangdong, Liaoning, and Anhui indicated that 76.2% of teach-

ers felt they were under work pressure, and 24.9% of the surveyed teachers felt severe 

or extremely stressed (Lu & Wang, 2008; Wang et al., 2015). Another study based on 

Shenyang City showed that 20.3% of the respondents felt the pressure was unbearable 

(Qin & Yan, 2007). This is basically consistent with the research conclusions in Wuhu 

of Anhui and Beijing (Alatambagen & Liu, 2014; Lai, 2011; Shu & Yao, 2004). A re-

cent study found that from 2002, 2011 to 2016, the professional pressure of basic edu-

cation teachers (including some preschool teachers) has gradually increased (Xu, 2017). 

The pressure of key teachers is not necessarily lower than that of other teachers (Li et 

al., 2013). Limited empirical research shows that teachers in rural preschools are under 

great pressure. For example, a survey of teachers in rural private kindergartens in Ya’an, 

Sichuan found that 49.6% of teachers thought they were under a lot of pressure, and 

36.3% thought they were under pressure (Guo et al., 2017). Although there is currently 

no empirical research in China for direct comparison, it is generally believed that pre-

school teachers face younger children, while taking care of childcare and education 

work at the same time, and their professional pressure is greater than that of primary 

and secondary school teachers (Tsai et al., 2006). From the point of view of stress 

sources, the stressors of preschool teachers are the children and their parents (53.5%) 

(Jiang et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2015). In terms of influencing factors, there are signifi-

cant differences in the work pressure of preschool teachers of different teaching age, 

professional title and school level. With the improvement of job titles, professional 

pressure shows a V-shaped change that first decreases and then increases. The 1,500-

2,000 CNY middle-income teacher group professional pressure score is significantly 

higher than other income teachers and the income and environmental pressure scores of 

unmarried teachers are significantly higher than those of married teachers (Lai, 2011). 

The impact of the nature of preschool has not yet gotten agreement. Other factors in-

clude social status, attribution methods and stress coping methods (Lu & Wang, 2008; 

Zhang et al., 2012). The work pressure of rural preschool teachers also varies with the 

nature of the preschool, the teacher’s marital status, age, teaching age, education level 

and grade (Wei & Dong, 2010). 

Internationally, the group of preschool teachers in the United States faces high 

job requirements and lacks psychological resources and control capabilities (Li-Grining 

et al., 2010). Based on a survey of 150 preschool teachers in Romania, 42.0% were 

“very stressed” and 86% had intermediate to advanced stress levels (Clipa & Boghean, 



Gong et al. The Professional Pressure Faced by Preschool Teachers in Rural China. 

Vol.6, No. 1, 2020 719 

2015). More than half of the 429 preschool teachers surveyed by Italian researchers had 

musculoskeletal diseases (Converson et al., 2018). Researchers mainly analyzed the 

sources of stress from the environment and individual factors, including: children’s 

problem behaviors, special children in integrated classrooms, large numbers of children 

in the class, excessive paperwork, handling non-teaching tasks, and persisting in im-

plementing correct early childhood education concepts, poor communication with col-

leagues and parents, children’s separation anxiety, and time pressure (Alison & 

Berthelsen, 1995; Friedmankrauss et al., 2014). 

On the whole, there are few surveys and researches on preschool teachers in ru-

ral areas, especially poor rural areas. For regions with different economic development 

levels, there is no direct comparative study, and the analysis of influencing factors is not 

thorough enough. Important variables such as child characteristics, teacher family sup-

port and work support, perseverance, and salary satisfaction have not been examined. 

After the completion of the two-term preschool three-year action plan, what is the cur-

rent situation of the professional pressure of rural preschool teachers? What are the 

sources and influencing factors of stress? What is the difference between the profes-

sional pressure of poor and non-poor rural preschool teachers? We conducted question-

naires and interviews with more than 700 teachers from 155 rural preschools in multiple 

counties in Hubei Province, China. This paper will use the professional pressure model 

to analyze the professional pressure of preschool teachers in rural China for the first 

time, assess the current situation and sources of pressure, use an Ordered Probit Model 

to examine the influencing factors of pressure, and compare the differences between 

poverty and non-poverty areas. This supplements the research literature on rural pre-

school teacher pressure, enriches the unity of empirical methods in existing research, 

and provides policy inspiration and suggestions for promoting the development of Chi-

nese preschool teachers and rural preschool education. 

Psychologically, stress is a cognitive and behavioral experience composed of 

psychological stressors and stress responses. Professional pressure is the experience and 

feeling of discomfort when an individual deviates from a normal or desired lifestyle at 

work (Shi, 2003). In the analytical framework of this article (Figure 1), professional 

pressure is regarded as a mental state. Generally, work pressure has a significant posi-

tive predictive effect on job burnout (Zhang et al., 2014), i.e., high professional pressure 

will lead to higher job burnout (Zhang et al., 2009). According to the classic Demand-

Control-Support (DCS) model, professional pressure stems from high work require-

ments, low control capabilities and insufficient support (Karasek et al., 1988; Johnson et 

al., 1989). 

Needs include work tasks and individual development requirements; control re-

fers to the individual’s control over work, including the level of individual abilities, 

ability and job matching status, and decision-making initiative at work; support mainly 

refers to school, family and social support. In empirical research, the related variables 

of the influencing factors of the teacher professional pressure source analysis model 

usually include demographic variables such as gender, age, marital status, education 

level, work experience, qualification certificates, etc.; and workplace environmental 



Gong et al. The Professional Pressure Faced by Preschool Teachers in Rural China. 

Vol.6, No. 1, 2020 720 

 

Figure 1. An Analysis Framework of Preschool Teachers’ Occu-

pational Stress Based on the DCS Model. 

 

 

 

factors such as workload and teaching resources, Income, relationship with colleagues, 

etc. These factors may affect teachers’ perception of job needs, self-control ability, and 

support received. This article classifies various factors into three dimensions: demand 

(D), control (C), and support (S). For example, workload, student behavior problems, 

parent expectations, etc. are demand factors. Psychological capital such as perseverance, 

personality characteristics, and the way of coping with stress are controlling factors. 

Economic benefits and colleague relations are supporting factors. Gender, education 

level, number of children, etc. are demographic variables that may affect multiple di-

mensions at the same time. For example, compared with men, women may have lower 

perceptions of their own work needs and less control, but the family burden is heavier. 

Since higher education level and professional title may increase teachers’ self-

development requirements, and also represent stronger individual ability and work deci-

sion-making initiative, teachers’ education level and professional title are both demand 

factors and control factors. 

Methods 

This research uses a combination of questionnaire surveys and interviews. The sample 

of rural preschool teachers comes from three national-level poverty-stricken counties 

and one non-poverty-stricken county in Hubei Province, which are located in the east 

(Counties A and B) and west (Counties C and D) of Hubei. The enrollment rate of chil-

dren of the right age in poverty-stricken county is about 80%, and that of non-poverty-

stricken county (County C) is slightly higher, and the teachers are not professional 

enough. After stratified sampling of county-level units, the selection of rural samples 

adopts a strategy of combining cluster sampling and random sampling, based on the 

principle of covering representative townships and village-level preschools in the corre-

sponding area, including 78 public, 71 private and 6 publicly-built private preschools. 

For two of the poverty-stricken counties, cluster sampling was used to let all teachers 

participate in the questionnaire survey; for the other two preschools and counties with a 



Gong et al. The Professional Pressure Faced by Preschool Teachers in Rural China. 

Vol.6, No. 1, 2020 721 

large number of teachers, stratified random sampling was used. In each sample pre-

school, most teachers filled out the questionnaire, the return rate exceeded 90%, the 

number of valid samples was 734, and the number of samples without missing variable 

information was 626. At the same time, the research team randomly interviewed at least 

one teacher in each preschool. 

Among the teachers surveyed, 53%, 40%, and 7% of the teachers were from 

public, private, and publicly-built private preschools, respectively; and more than 60% 

are from national-level poverty-stricken county. In terms of demographic characteristics, 

the proportion of male teachers was relatively low (1%), 13% were ethnic minorities, 

and the average age was 32 years old, with the majority being 20-30 years old (32.83%) 

and 30-40 years old (50.41%). Seventeen percent of teachers had a non-agricultural 

household registration, 92% were married, and more than 90% had at least one child. 

The education level of most teachers was associate degree (28.9%), 6.07% had a bache-

lor degree, 28% of teachers were majoring in preschool education, and 15% had pre-

school education qualification certificates. It can be seen that the overall educational 

background and professional level of rural preschool teachers were relatively low. In 

addition, the average teacher-student ratio of the classes led by these teachers was 0.06, 

which is approximately 1:17. These teachers worked an average of 9.12 hours a day, 

which was more than one hour over the eight-hour work system. The proportion of 

teachers signing contracts was 60%, and the proportion of those with institutional staff-

ing status was only 11%. The average monthly salary was 1,563 CNY. About 16% of 

teachers had received preschool help when personally experiencing financial difficulties. 

The survey used self-compiled questionnaires, and drew on related research on 

teachers’ professional pressure and the quality of rural preschool teachers. Among them, 

related variables of professional pressure referred to the DCS model and the study of 

Jiang (Jiang et al., 2016). There are 92 questions in total. The current pressure was 

mainly measured by two indicators. The first was the question of the degree of stress, 

from 1 to 4 represents the degree of increase gradually. The second was a five-point 

scale adapted by researchers based on the MBI-ES for Educational Practitioners’ Burn-

out Scale, which included 15 items like “feeling exhausted at the end of work”, “work 

all day is really stressful for me”, and “I have difficulty to concentrate”, etc. The stand-

ardized job burnout index is synthesized through factor analysis, which approximately 

obeys a standard normal distribution with a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1. 

The scale has been widely used in the research of individual job burnout. Through the 

test, the Cronbach’s α of the scale is 0.801, and the internal consistency is highly relia-

ble. At the same time, the questionnaire also asked about the largest source of the stress 

of the teachers surveyed. According to the DCS model, part of the professional pressure 

of teachers came from work needs. In the professional situation of preschool teachers, 

work pressure mainly came from children, parents, preschool principals, colleagues and 

the society; the other part came from self-development needs and self-control. There-

fore, the professional pressure of preschool teachers may also come from themselves. 

Therefore, the most stressor question was set as a multiple-choice question, with a total 

of 4 options: children and parents, preschool internal, self and society. 



Gong et al. The Professional Pressure Faced by Preschool Teachers in Rural China. 

Vol.6, No. 1, 2020 722 

Regarding the quantitative analysis of the influencing factors of professional 

pressure, the questionnaire also designed related questions. According to the DCS mod-

el, many factors affect professional pressure. Generally, professional pressure stems 

from high job requirements, low control capabilities, and insufficient support. If the 

individual feels, the higher the work requirements, the lower the self-control ability, and 

the less support he receives, the greater the pressure he feels. Therefore, the question-

naire asked about the content of the job requirements of the surveyed teachers. For ex-

ample, workload and the number of children with difficulties in class; ability and psy-

chology that reflect control dimensions, such as education level, perseverance, and pro-

fessional identity, some of which also demand dimensions; problems that reflect sup-

port dimensions, such as contract signing, salary, satisfaction with salary, relationship 

with colleagues. Besides, the questionnaire also contains demographic variables that 

affect the three dimensions together. Among them, perseverance character is a kind of 

psychological capital, a perceptual evaluation, and control factor, and indicators such as 

depression and lack of confidence in the management of behavioral relationships. The 

measurement method comes from the Chinese version of the grit scale developed by 

psychologist Angela Duckworth. It is a five-point scale, including eight items such as 

“New ideas and projects sometimes distract me” and “Setbacks cannot make me dis-

couraged.” Its Cronbach coefficient is 0.607. The professional identity index’s meas-

urement tool comes from the research of Tang et al. is a four-point scale, including 18 

items such as “I very much agree with the profession of preschool teachers,” and the 

Cronbach coefficient is 0.803. Both indices have undergone factor analysis and stand-

ardization. The family support index is a composite of the support level of family mem-

bers, including five items. The job support variable is measured by the degree to which 

“preschool has helped solve personal financial difficulties.” 

The questionnaire was distributed at noon and was filled out by the teacher or 

an assistant. The questionnaire data is analyzed by descriptive statistics and systematic 

quantitative model analysis through STATA 14.0 software. Since the main dependent 

variable stress degree is an ordered discrete variable with a value of 1-4, and does not 

obey a normal distribution, the researcher chose an Ordered Probit Model and used the 

oprobit command to estimate. The model is as follows: 

 

                                                     

                

 

Among them, y is the ordered categorical variable “pressure degree”. 

 

If y*<=c1, y=1, it means “no pressure” 

If c1<y*<=c2, y=2, it means “less pressure” 

If c2<y*<=c3, y=3, it means “high pressure” 

If y*>c3, y=4, it means “huge pressure” 

 



Gong et al. The Professional Pressure Faced by Preschool Teachers in Rural China. 

Vol.6, No. 1, 2020 723 

cj (j=1, 2, 3) is the critical value of the professional pressure index in ascending 

order from one degree to the next. The coefficient of c and the independent variable can 

be estimated by the maximum likelihood estimation method. As mentioned earlier, the 

influencing factors in the model mainly include: (1) demographic variables such as 

gender, age, ethnicity, education, and household registration; (2) education level, pro-

fessional match degree, qualification certificate holding status, perseverance character, 

Control factors such as professional identity, some of which are also demand factors; (3) 

Demand factors such as the number of working hours per day, the type of class, the 

teacher-student ratio, the number of children with difficulties in the class, etc.; (4) Sup-

porting factors include contract signing , Staffing status, salary, satisfaction with salary, 

colleague relations, school support, etc. In addition, there are school types and county-

level virtual variables to control the differences between campuses and counties. 

In the interview method, a semi-structured interview outline was used, which 

focused on content such as the degree of preference for the current job, the degree of 

stress, the reasons for the stress, the way of dealing with stress, the size of the class, and 

whether the children were difficult to teach. The choice of interview time was flexible, 

usually during interclass, lunch break or after get off work. In addition to on-site notes, 

interviews were recorded through audio recording after consent was obtained. The qual-

itative data collected was analyzed by classification method. Before issuing the ques-

tionnaire and starting the interview, the team members who received uniform training 

introduced the identity of the researcher and the research theme, obtained the consent 

and trust of the interviewees, and tried to ensure that the data and information were true 

and effective. 

Results and Analysis 

The Status Quo of Professional Pressure of Preschool Teach-

ers in Rural China 

In Table 1, the surveyed rural preschool teachers faced greater professional pressure, 

36.83% of the teachers believed that they were under pressure at work, and 44.47% be-

lieved that the pressure was high. Among them, 40% of teachers worked for 10 hours or 

more per day, 2 hours more than normal working hours. During the survey, many 

teachers said, “I don’t have enough time to rest at noon every day.” On the other hand, 

the job burnout level of the sample teachers was not very high. The maximum personal 

index is only 3.87 (the theoretical maximum level is 5). Only 4.91% of the teachers 

chose the high levels of 4 and 5, no collapse appeared. This was lower than the level 

(22.17% of burnout type) found by Li et al. in the survey of preschool teachers in Bei-

jing and Tianjin (Li et al., 2019). At the same time, there were still 43.24% of the teach-

ers surveyed chose to “feel exhausted when off work”, which was worthy of the atten-

tion of policy makers. A teacher pointed out in an interview, “I feel very tired and 

stressed, there are too many children in the class and they are noisy, and my voice is 

uncomfortable.” Compare Guo et al.’s (2017) (49.6% has high pressure, 36.3% has 



Gong et al. The Professional Pressure Faced by Preschool Teachers in Rural China. 

Vol.6, No. 1, 2020 724 

Table 1. Distribution of Stress Status and Job Burnout of Pre-

school Teachers in the Surveyed Rural Areas. 

County 

Frequency Distribution 
Percentage of Pressure (%) 

Mean of Pres-
sure (1-4) 

Mean of Job 
Burnout (1-5) Sample # 1: No 2: Low 3: High 4: Huge 

Total 3.96 14.73 36.83 44.47 3.22 2.43 733 

PSC 

A 6.67 20.00 39.05 34.29 3.01 1.96 105 

B 9.09 15.91 25.00 50.00 3.16 2.13 44 

D 3.44 18.21 43.3 35.05 3.10 2.44 291 

Non- 
PSC 

C 2.73 9.22 31.4 56.66 3.42 2.62 293 

Note: Because one of the 734 total samples is missing pressure information, the number of samples here is 
733. The total number of samples 733 is also used in the statistics of pressure information below. 

PSC: Poverty-stricken County; Non-PSC: Non-Poverty-stricken County. 4:Huge = Very High. 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2. Comparison of Frequency Distribution of Stress Levels 

between Poverty-Stricken Counties and Non-Poverty-Stricken 

Counties. 

 

 

 

 



Gong et al. The Professional Pressure Faced by Preschool Teachers in Rural China. 

Vol.6, No. 1, 2020 725 

huge or very high pressure), Zhang’s pressure on preschool teachers in Wuhan City (48% 

expressed huge or very high (Zhang, 2016) and Jiang et al.’s pressure on rural preschool 

teachers in 2016 (35.0% showed the pressure was very high, 32.7% was under high 

pressure), as well as Wang & Gan’s survey of the professional pressure situation of ru-

ral elementary school teachers in Shaoguan City, Guangdong Province close to the 

same period (53.4% were under high pressure, 7.77% under very high pressure) (Wang 

& Gan, 2018), this study found Rural preschool teachers have a higher level of profes-

sional pressure. 

There were certain regional differences in the level of professional pressure of 

teachers. As shown in Figure 2, preschool teachers in non-poverty-stricken counties 

faced greater pressure compared to poverty-stricken counties. The level of job burnout 

of teachers in both poverty- and non-poverty-stricken county was roughly the same, and 

the level of job burnout of teachers in eastern counties was significantly higher than that 

of western counties. 

From the perspective of demographic variables, the professional pressure levels 

of male and female teachers were not different. There were certain differences in the 

professional pressure of teachers of different ages. Among them, teachers in the 40-50 

years old had the highest professional pressure (Mean: 3.37). The professional pressure 

of teachers with rural household registration is higher (3.25 vs. 3.10). The average pro-

fessional pressure of married teachers was higher (3.24 vs. 2.97), and the professional 

pressure of minority teachers was slightly lower (3.05 vs. 3.25), but these differences 

did not pass the significance test in the influencing factor model. 

The Sources of Professional Pressure for Preschool Teachers 

in Rural China 

In the preschools surveyed, the professional pressure of teachers mainly came from 

children and parents. As shown in Table 2, among the sample teachers, 63.74% thought 

that the pressure comes from children and parents, 10.54% from preschool, 15.81% 

from themselves, and 9.90% from the society. 

Combining the DCS model and various survey data, it is found that external 

job requirements are the main source of pressure for preschool teachers in rural China. 

Many teachers interviewed also believe that children’s safety in the kindergarten and 

communication with parents are the biggest source of stress. On the one hand, safety 

issues have always been their biggest concern, because once a child has any problems in 

preschool, even if it is very small, it is easy to be complained or embarrassed by parents. 

Moreover, the mentality of rural preschool parents eager to see the effects of preschool 

education can easily increase the pressure on teachers. Teachers are faced with the ever-

increasing requirements of the new generation of parents, and the pressure of the par-

ents’ expectation of literacy and mathematics education. This is in great conflict with 

China authority’s idea of preventing “elementary schooling in pre-school education” 

and has increased the difficulty of teachers’ work.  

As a teacher in County C said, “Some parents do not understand their work 

(children pee in their pants, scratch their face, and fail to learn knowledge), and they 



Gong et al. The Professional Pressure Faced by Preschool Teachers in Rural China. 

Vol.6, No. 1, 2020 726 

Table 2. Distribution of Sources of Professional Stress for Rural 

Preschool Teachers. 

Source 
Total Sample Sub-Sample 

F % Male Female < 50 yr ≥ 50 yr AHR Non-AHR 

Children & 
Parents 

399 63.74 42.86 63.72 64.39 20.00 65.76 53.85 

Preschool 66.0 10.54 0 10.34 10.01 26.67 10.00 11.89 

Self 99.0 15.81 0 16.28 16.27 6.67 16.44 14.69 

Society 62.0 9.90 57.14 9.66 9.32 46.67 7.80 19.58 

Total 626 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 

Note: F: Frequency; AHR: Agricultural Household Registration; Non-AHR: Non- Agricultural Household Regis-
tration. 

 

 

 

 

Table 3. Types of Classes Brought by Preschool Teachers and 

Professional Stress. 

Class Percentage (%) 

Professional Pressure 

Mean SD Min Max 

2-3 yr 2.15 3.33 0.62 2 4 

3-4 yr 28.26 3.29 0.83 1 4 

4-5 yr 27.12 3.23 0.84 1 4 

5-6 yr 28.26 3.09 0.88 1 4 

6-7 yr 14.20 3.23 0.81 1 4 

 

 

 

have not considered how many children a teacher has to bring and do not give them-

selves the opportunity to explain.” A teacher in County B mentioned, “The work pres-

sure is high, and every day I must be nervous and pay attention to the behavior of each 

child, worrying about safety issues and not explaining to my parents.” A teacher in 

County D has similar feelings, “Sometimes parents feel that their children have not 

learned anything at school, so they feel stressed.” In addition, many teachers pointed 

out, “The pressure of work comes from more children, and the children have different 

personalities, some are naughty, and some are obedient”; “Work is also very tiring, 

there are many children in the class, it is very noisy, and many children like to report 

but don’t like to listen to the teacher’s words. I have to emphasize a sentence many 

times.” 

Specifically, the pressure from children and parents and the work requirements 

of preschool have increased the workload of teachers. For example, “There are monthly 

activities in the park, such as outdoor open classes, reading competitions (inter-class 

appraisal), and children’s activities on Children’s Day, all of which require teachers’ 



Gong et al. The Professional Pressure Faced by Preschool Teachers in Rural China. 

Vol.6, No. 1, 2020 727 

design plans, which are relatively difficult.” The descriptive statistics show that profes-

sional pressure and working hours are a significant factor. It is directly proportional 

(Spearman rank correlation coefficient is 0.11), and is significantly correlated at the 

level of p = 0.01. At the same time, the professional pressure of a teacher is related to 

the class type. Table 3 shows that the average professional pressure scores of 2-3yr 

childcare teachers and 3-4 preschool teachers are higher than those of 3-4yr, 4-5yr and 

5-6yr classes. More accurate results need to be verified by the ordered probability selec-

tion model. The heavy workload is even more serious for small-scale private preschools 

with only one teacher per class. As one interviewed teacher said, “some parents will 

pick up their children home for lunch breaks, but some children will stay in the class to 

play. We need to feed, receive parents, give homework, and take care of some of the 

children who are not sleeping. So every day it is very common to work over 12 hours.” 

Relatively speaking, the self-control ability they felt has a certain effect. For 

example, in the way of coping with stress, most of the teachers with greater stress did 

not know how to deal with such stress. Many teachers mentioned, “What else can I do, I 

can only rest more on my own”, “Every day I work under a lot of pressure, and I am 

already stunned when I get home, and I can only transmit my pressure to my children.” 

In addition, the professional pressure of teachers is closely related to security factors 

such as staffing status and salary, indicating the effect of control and support factors on 

pressure perception. For teachers with institutional staffing status, only 33.72% felt 

“high pressure”, but for teachers without the staffing status, the proportion increased to 

45.9%. Teacher professional pressure was negatively correlated with the salary satisfac-

tion (Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient is -0.2416), and it is significant at the level 

of p=0.01. This means that the higher the teacher’s satisfaction with the salary, the low-

er the professional pressure. As shown in Figure 3, for the teachers with the highest 

salary satisfaction, only 14.29% of the teachers expressed a high pressure; for those 

teachers with the lowest salary satisfaction, 66.28% expressed a high pressure. In addi-

tion, none of the interviewed teachers mentioned that they received insufficient family 

support; a few teachers pointed out that “the burden is heavier at home”, but “in many 

cases, it is better to go back home despite the pressure.” At the same time, some teach-

ers mentioned the disadvantages of school support, such as “the principal is too strict, 

does not respect the teacher, has a low status in the school, and parents have prejudice 

against them, and there is no promotion opportunity and qualifications”, so “there is no 

hope for work.” 

In terms of sub-samples, 16.72% of preschool teachers in non-poverty areas be-

lieved that the biggest source of pressure was preschool. In contrast, the proportion of 

preschool teachers in poverty-stricken areas was only 6.12%, and the proportion of 

choosing children and parents as the biggest stressor was also significantly higher 

(67.12% vs. 58.02%). From the perspective of demographic variables, different groups 

of teachers had different sources of professional pressure. As shown in Table 3, for 

male teachers, a large part of the stressor came from the society (57.14%), surpassing 

“children and parents”, which is only 9.66% for female teachers. For preschool teachers 

who are older than 50 years old, the biggest stressor was not only children and parents 



Gong et al. The Professional Pressure Faced by Preschool Teachers in Rural China. 

Vol.6, No. 1, 2020 728 

 

Figure 3. The Relationship between Professional Stress and Sal-

ary Satisfaction. 

 

 

 

(20.00%), but society (46.67%). For rural preschool teachers with non-agricultural 

household registration, the pressure from the society was also higher (19.58% vs. 

7.80%). 

Analysis of the Ordered Probit Model of Influencing Factors 

of Professional Pressure 

The results of the Ordered Probit Model of the factors affecting the degree of profes-

sional pressure are shown in Table 4. In terms of demographic variables, age had a pos-

itive effect on the professional pressure of teachers. The older you are, the more likely 

you are to feel “high pressure.” In addition, if rural preschool teachers have a rural 

household registration, the more likely they were to feel “high pressure.” The number of 

years in school had a positive effect on teacher pressure. Other demographic variables 

related to ability, such as education level and qualification certificate holding status, did 

not show a significant impact. 

Consistent with the source analysis, most of the variables that reflect job re-

quirements had significant effects. Among them, the number of working hours per day 

was positively correlated with the degree of work stress. Rural preschool teachers often 

spent a lot of time on daily management tasks, including taking care of children, prepar-

ing lessons, communicating with parents, organizing texts, and participating in training. 

The professional pressure level of teachers who care the 3-4 yr old children was signifi-

cantly higher than that of other classes, which was consistent with the results of descrip- 



Gong et al. The Professional Pressure Faced by Preschool Teachers in Rural China. 

Vol.6, No. 1, 2020 729 

Table 4. Model Results of Factors Affecting Professional Pres-

sure. 

Variable 
Model 1: No Missing 
Value Processed 

Model 2: Mean Replacement 
of Missing Values and Miss-
ing Labeling Method 

Demographic 
Characteristics 

Gender: Male -0.261 (0.640) 0.268 (0.490) 

Nationality: Minority 0.277 (0.215) 0.128 (0.190) 

Age 0.024** (0.009) 0.015* (0.009) 

AHR 0.301** (0.138) 0.326*** (0.124) 

Married 0.364 (0.311) 0.304 (0.270) 

No Child 0.157 (0.290) 0.019 (0.256) 

Capability 
Characteristics: 
Demand and Control 

CCP Member 0.078 (0.192) 0.148 (0.174) 

Education Level -0.008 (0.047) -0.007 (0.043) 

Major in Preschool 0.041 (0.111) 0.070 (0.104) 

Preschool 
Qualification 

0.165 (0.144) 0.197 (0.132) 

Teaching Years 0.029 (0.020) 0.032* (0.018) 

Work Characteristic 1: 
Demand 

Daily work Hours 0.092** (0.045) 0.091** (0.042) 

3-4 yr Old Children 0.223** (0.108) 0.212** (0.103) 

2-3 yr Old Children 0.273 (0.333) 0.237 (0.309) 

Teacher/Child Ratio 2.384 (1.870) 2.880* (1.726) 

No. of Difficult 
Children 

0.012*** (0.005) 0.011** (0.005) 

Work Characteristic 2: 
Demand And Control 

Transfer Teacher -0.116 (0.206) -0.090 (0.185) 

Professional Title 0.155 (0.113) 0.126 (0.105) 

Work Characteristic 3: 
Support 

Contracted -0.033 (0.107) -0.041 (0.101) 

Institutional Staff -0.538** (0.211) -0.529*** (0.194) 

Salary 0.0001 (0.0001) 0.0001 (0.0001) 

Psychological 
Characteristics: 
Control 

Salary Satisfaction -0.162*** (0.057) -0.174*** (0.052) 

Perseverance -0.099* (0.057) -0.076* (0.050) 

Professional Identity -0.142*** (0.055) -0.079 (0.049) 

Social Support: 
Control 

Family Support -0.178** (0.079) -0.174** (0.074) 

School Helped 
Personal Financial 
Difficulties Ever 

-0.366*** (0.125) 
 

-0.326*** (0.119) 
 

Preschool Type: 
Demand 

Public Preschool 0.128 (0.116) 0.113 (0.107) 

Public-Built Private 0.206 (0.220) 0.342 (0.209) 

County Virtual 
Variable 
(County A as the 
Reference) 

B 0.239 (0.290) 0.378 (0.237) 

C 0.487** (0.229) 0.559*** (0.211) 

D 0.363 (0.229) 0.345 (0.210) 

N 626 733 

Note: *, **, *** represent the significance level of 10%, 5% and 1% respectively. 

ARH: Agricultural household registration; CCP: Chinese Communist Party. 

 

 

 

 

 



Gong et al. The Professional Pressure Faced by Preschool Teachers in Rural China. 

Vol.6, No. 1, 2020 730 

tive statistical analysis. The sample number of teachers for 2-3 yr children was limited, 

and there was no significant difference, but the coefficient was also positive. In addition, 

the greater the number of difficult children in the class (including left-behind children, 

children with family financial difficulties and children in need of special education), the 

greater the work pressure of teachers. 

There was a negative correlation between the perseverance character that re-

flects the controlling factors and professional pressure, indicating that the teacher’s own 

psychological capital will affect their perception and response to pressure. Positive in-

dividual adjustment factors in classic research include tolerance to change, self-esteem, 

non-individualism, persistence, strong personality, and non-A-type personality (Shi, 

2003). In addition, teachers with high professional identity were less stressed. 

The pressure-relieving effect of institutional staffing status is extremely signifi-

cant, reflecting the importance of the support factors of welfare and job security to rural 

preschool teachers in China. The stress of teachers without staffing status was signifi-

cantly greater than that of teachers with staffing status. Approximately 45.90% of 

teachers without staffing status expressed high pressure. Among teachers with staffing 

status, the proportion was only 33.72%, a difference of 12.28 percentage points. Salary 

had no significant effect, but satisfaction with salary can significantly reduce the degree 

of stress, which is consistent with the DCS model and the pay-back model (Luo et al., 

2011). In addition, the other two indicators of the support dimension in the DCS model 

showed significant effects: first, the degree of family support was significantly nega-

tively correlated with the professional pressure of rural preschool teachers; second, if 

preschool had helped teachers solve personal financial difficulties, and the probability 

of the teacher “feeling high pressure” is significantly lower. 

Discussion 

The professional pressure status of rural preschool teachers is related to the stability of 

teacher resources, the quality of preschool education and the development of children. 

Existing studies rarely involve the professional pressure of preschool teachers in poor 

rural areas, and lack systematic and strict quantitative model analysis. Based on the sur-

vey data in the rural areas of Hubei and the demand-control-support model in the pro-

fessional pressure theory, this article empirically analyzes the current situation, sources 

and influencing factors of the professional pressure of teachers in rural preschools. The 

main conclusions and discussions are as follows: 

First, the current preschool teachers in rural China are facing greater profes-

sional pressure. Among the teachers surveyed, 44.47% thought the pressure was ex-

tremely high, and 36.83% thought the pressure was high. This level is relatively high 

compared with previous studies on the pressure of rural preschool teachers. Meanwhile, 

the teacher’s job burnout is within a tolerable range and there is no large-scale collapse, 

so it should be viewed in a comprehensive and objective manner; 43.24% of the teach-

ers surveyed still felt exhausted when they were off work. In view of the negative effect 

of excessive work pressure, the professional pressure of rural preschool teachers de-

serves attention and further exploration. 



Gong et al. The Professional Pressure Faced by Preschool Teachers in Rural China. 

Vol.6, No. 1, 2020 731 

Second, in general, the professional pressure of preschool teachers in rural 

China mainly comes from children and parents. From the perspective of the DCS model, 

the main reason for the high professional pressure of rural preschool teachers was the 

high job demand, and this demand mainly came from the job requirements of others. 

Approximately 63.74% believed that the greatest pressure came from children and par-

ents, 10.54% thought it was mainly from preschool, 15.81% thought the pressure was 

mainly from themselves, and 9.90% of teachers thought it was mainly from society. The 

interviewed teachers were worried about the safety of their children, and at the same 

time, they often found it difficult to deal with elementary problems such as parents’ 

over-concern with their children’s pronunciation and arithmetic. This level is consistent 

with Jiang et al.’s findings on 7 national-level poverty alleviation counties in 6 provinc-

es and cities in central, western, southern, and northern China, and Wang et al.’s re-

search on Changchun preschool teachers, and the proportion is higher (63.74% vs. 42.4% 

vs. 53.5%); but from the source of the pressure of teachers themselves, it is lower than 

the study by Jiang et al. (15.81% vs. 27.0%). Descriptive statistical analysis also found 

that professional pressure is related to work requirements and control factors such as 

working hours, class type, staffing status, and salary satisfaction. 

Third, based on the results of the Ordered Probit Model, the influencing factors 

of the professional pressure of rural preschool teachers include age, household registra-

tion, number of years in school, workload, class characteristics, number of children in 

difficulty, perseverance, professional identity, staffing status, salary satisfaction Degree, 

family support, work support and inter-county differences. According to the DCS model, 

the positive effect of age may be due to the fact that older teachers are already at the 

mature stage of their careers, playing a more important role in preschool, and having a 

stronger need for self-development. Moreover, due to the relatively low level of educa-

tion of older preschool teachers, poor health, lower acceptance of new knowledge, and 

weak control over work content, work pressure is naturally greater. Household registra-

tion status largely reflects the socio-economic status and social resources of teachers 

and their families. If teachers working in rural areas have urban household registration, 

the resources from their families may be better, and then the preschool environment 

may be better. The ability to withstand pressure is stronger with stronger control over 

the work, and the perception of stress is weaker. The longer of years the teachers taught 

in school, the richer the work experience they would get, and then the stronger the abil-

ity and the higher the degree of stress resistance would be. Of particular importance is 

the fact that workload has a positive effect on professional pressure and burnout, which 

again verifies the discovery that the largest source of stress comes from work require-

ments. The work pressure of teachers is positively correlated with the number of chil-

dren with difficulties in class, which is in line with the reality of preschools in rural 

China. In the interview, a teacher pointed out, “There are more left-behind children in 

my class. Two children are brought by their parents and the others are brought by 

grandparents. It is more difficult to communicate, especially when the children are in-

jured because of collisions. During the activities, teaching children to dance and sing is 

difficult, and he will ignore you.” Although the teacher-student ratio in rural preschools 



Gong et al. The Professional Pressure Faced by Preschool Teachers in Rural China. 

Vol.6, No. 1, 2020 732 

is also problematic, basically it has not achieved “two teachers and one childcare work-

er” (in many cases there is only one teacher in a class), but due to the lack of internal 

differences, almost all teachers face this problem, the model found no significant results. 

Under the premise of controlling other factors, factors such as perseverance, profession-

al identity and family support can also reduce professional pressure. Existing literature 

shows that self-esteem, self-motivated and perseverance are good predictors of profes-

sional pressure (Yang & Wu, 2013; Li et al., 2013). The effect of professional identity 

in reducing stress is consistent with a study from the United States (Buettne et al., 2016). 

As a teacher in County D mentioned in an interview, “Work pressure is okay, because I 

like this job, so I feel a little more relaxed.” Salary satisfaction can significantly reduce 

the degree of stress, while the relationship between salary itself and work pressure is not 

significant. It shows that teachers’ psychological feelings about wages are more im-

portant, that is, under greater work intensity, the low wages perceived by preschool 

teachers are likely to cause psychological imbalance, low professional accomplishment, 

and higher professional pressure. It can be seen from the survey and model results that 

teachers’ recognition of their salary is a key factor. Some teachers have lower absolute 

salaries, but they are relatively acceptable in poor rural areas. They also believe that 

their academic background is consistent with the salary they receive, and their satisfac-

tion with salary is not necessarily low, and vice versa. Family and school support are 

substantially negatively correlated with the professional pressure of rural preschool 

teachers, indicating that effective social support is an important guarantee for individu-

als to cope with stress. 

Fourth, the professional pressure of preschool teachers in non-poor rural areas 

is higher than that in poor rural areas, and their sense of job burnout is roughly the same. 

This seems to go against the general expectation, but according to our research, we 

found that there are more preschools in rural areas in non-poverty-stricken counties. 

The competition among preschools is fierce. More workloads and work requirements 

can easily lead to greater professional pressure. Other reasons may lie in: rural pre-

school teachers in non-poverty areas have relatively high levels of education (47.44% 

and 27.67% of associate degree and above), and higher requirements for their own de-

velopment; preschools in developed rural areas have a higher level of teacher manage-

ment and the requirements may be higher. From the perspective of pressure sources, 

16.72% of preschool teachers in non-poverty areas believe that their biggest source of 

stress is preschool, which is nearly 11 percentage points higher than that in poverty-

stricken areas, and the proportion of choosing children and parents as the biggest source 

of stress is also lower. In addition, the levels of professional pressure and burnout of 

rural teachers in the eastern region were higher than those in the western region. Ac-

cording to the analysis of the survey, this may be because there are more preschools in 

the low-mountain plains in the eastern region, and the competition is more intense than 

in the high-mountainous regions of the western Hubei. 

Recommendations 



Gong et al. The Professional Pressure Faced by Preschool Teachers in Rural China. 

Vol.6, No. 1, 2020 733 

The results of this empirical study provide important policy inspiration for adjusting the 

professional pressure of preschool teachers in rural China and better guaranteeing the 

core quality of rural preschool education. For preschool teachers, moderate professional 

pressure helps to enhance their work motivation, but long-term excessive pressure can 

cause teachers’ bad mood, negative slack, high resignation rate and absenteeism, which 

is not conducive to the development of preschool education (Xu, 2003). Considering 

that the overall pressure of teachers in rural preschools is relatively high, the govern-

ment and schools should establish effective incentive and restraint mechanisms to effec-

tively help teachers reduce work pressure in terms of wages and benefits, social status, 

parental guidance, and workload; teachers should also actively respond to professional 

pressure, improve emotional management and control ability, reasonably regulate pres-

sure, and turn it into development motivation. Specifically, we recommend the follow-

ing points. 

First, the government and schools should introduce corresponding policies and 

measures to reduce the workload of teachers in rural preschools, so as to appropriately 

ease the pressure on teachers. For example, increase the allocation of rural preschool 

teachers, rationally and effectively arrange and allocate workload, and reduce their non-

teaching workload. At the same time, the government and society should take measures 

to improve and protect the social and economic status of rural preschool teachers. Pre-

school leaders should try their best to create an optimal educational environment and 

working atmosphere for teachers to reduce the stressors. 

Second, given that the source of pressure mainly comes from children and par-

ents, the government and schools need to provide more parent education and propagan-

da to improve parents’ awareness, so that they can learn more about the nature and 

complexity of preschool teachers’ work. At the same time, actively guide preschool 

teachers to conduct home-school cooperation and communication to reduce the pressure 

from parents. Due to the low-age characteristics of children and the fact that rural par-

ents have not yet formed a scientific preschool education concept that conforms to the 

law of children’s growth and national guidelines, it is particularly important for teachers 

to gain the understanding and cooperation of parents in preschool education for their 

professional happiness. 

Third, since professional pressure has not caused excessive job burnout, it is 

necessary to increase the stress resistance of rural preschool teachers, rather than simply 

alleviate the pressure. Psychologically, not all stress is bad. Yerkes and Dodson first 

studied the different effects of stress and proposed the famous “Yerkes-Dodson Law”, 

that is, before reaching a certain point, as the level of stress and arousal increases, work 

performance also improves; After this point is exceeded, work performance begins to 

decline. Moderate pressure can not only stimulate the engine and improve work effi-

ciency; it also has the functions of arousing, adjusting, and strengthening, which are the 

basic conditions for individuals to cope with life events (Yerks & Dodson, 1908). A 

variety of ways can improve teachers’ self-stress management and control ability, so 

that they can devote themselves to the work of preschool education. Preschool teachers 

should recognize the importance of their work for themselves, students, parents and 



Gong et al. The Professional Pressure Faced by Preschool Teachers in Rural China. 

Vol.6, No. 1, 2020 734 

society, and constantly remind and improve themselves. In addition, society and schools 

should increase social, economic and psychological support for rural preschool teachers. 

Active support is a protective factor, which can protect teachers’ enthusiasm for work, 

enhance professional identity, and improve their ability to resist stress, so as to play a 

positive role in professional pressure. Whereas empirical studies have found that rela-

tive wages have a greater support and protection effect, and wage satisfaction is highly 

correlated with their relative wage levels among those around them. Therefore, the gov-

ernment should provide satisfactory salaries for teachers in public preschools, and pri-

vate preschools should also consider market demand and the long-term development of 

schools to provide teachers with reasonable salaries. 

Fourth, the study found that under the same county, age, workload, staffing sta-

tus, etc., rural preschool teachers with perseverance and a high sense of professional 

identity have less pressure to report, indicating that these teachers can better deal with 

professional pressure. Therefore, psychological capital training courses can be added to 

the aforementioned training to improve teachers’ social and emotional skills and perse-

verance character, thereby reducing the transmission of teacher pressure to children. 

Teachers who are under pressure should be provided with timely mentor guidance and 

psychological counseling opportunities, and consideration should be given to appropri-

ately adding anti-stress content in business training, and innovating teacher education 

and training methods according to needs. For example, increase meditation training. 

Considering that the number of years of teaching has a significant impact on alleviating 

stress, the government and preschools should increase training opportunities, use senior 

teachers to supervise and instruct junior teachers, improve new teachers’ work ability 

and professional identity, and strengthen their ability to resist stress. 

In conclusion, coping with the professional pressure of preschool teachers re-

quires the concerted efforts of the government, society, schools, and teachers to form a 

joint force. Our research results also demonstrated that while focusing on preschool 

teachers as a whole, we should also focus on rural preschool teachers for the child 

group of 3-4 year olds, and teachers who are older, lack staffing status, have no non-

agricultural household registration, and overloading working. In view of the fact that 

the pressure on teachers in national-level poverty-stricken county preschools is not nec-

essarily higher than that in non-poverty-stricken counties, relevant policies and 

measures to reduce pressure should cover the wider rural areas. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Gong et al. The Professional Pressure Faced by Preschool Teachers in Rural China. 

Vol.6, No. 1, 2020 735 

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Received: 11 May 2020 

Revised: 12 June 2020 

Accepted: 22 June 2020 

 

 

The Chinese version of this article has been published in Xueqian Jiaoyu Yanjiu, 2020; 2020(2):18-31. 

The English version has been authorized for being publication in BECE by the author(s) and the Chi-

nese journal. 

龚欣, 牛彩星, 王鶄. (2020). 农村幼儿园教师职业压力现状, 来源及影响因素. 学前教育研究, 
2020(2):18-31. 

 


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	Article-XinGong-BECE_Maintext22Sep2020

