An integrative review on job burnout among teachers in China: Implications for Human Resource Management

The antecedents and outcomes of teacher burnout have received increasing research attention in China over the last three decades, as burnout becomes a serious issue for a large workgroup of 1.6 million teachers in Chinese education system. However, there has been no comprehensive review to synthesize the literature in this area, limiting our understanding on how burnout is experienced in this specific culture context. In this paper, using job demands-resources (JD-R) model as a theoretical framework, we conduct an integrative literature review on teacher burnout in China, which includes 67 studies published from 1995 to the present. We review on the job demands, job resources, personal resources as the antecedents of burnout, and also on the outcomes of burnout. Our review indicates that teachers in China experience unique job demands because of specific cultural context. Moreover, we summarize how proactive and avoidant coping contribute differently to the mechanism of burnout development among Chinese teachers. Third, drawing from the recent extension of the JD-R model, we build a conceptualized framework to suggest future avenues for teacher burnout research in China, including examining job demands, job resources, and personal resources under specific cultural context, further investigating the role of coping strategies in the JD-R model, and conducting more research on intervention.