This study examines the relationship between school culture and teachers’ subjective well-being by considering the mediating role of psychological empowerment. A cross-sectional relational research design was employed, and data were analyzed using multilevel structural equation modeling. The study sample consisted of 481 teachers working in public schools in Erbil city, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The findings indicate that school culture has a positive and significant effect on teachers’ subjective well-being at both the individual and school levels. In addition, school culture was found to strongly predict teachers’ psychological empowerment at the school level. Psychological empowerment, in turn, was positively associated with teachers’ subjective well-being and played a significant mediating role in the relationship between school culture and well-being. These findings demonstrate that caring and supportive school cultures are relevant to empowering teachers and improving their psychological functioning. Based on these results, the discussion highlights the effects of school culture on the empowerment experiences of teachers and the impact of empowerment on increased subjective well-being. The findings give strong suggestions that positive school cultures have to be developed to encourage teacher well-being, especially in centralized education systems.
Alanoglu et al. (2026) studied this question.