The Social Well-being of Teachers during their Training: the Role of Citizenship and Participation

In recent years it has been evidenced the implications that educational institutions and professionals may have in the construction of new societies with greater civic commitment and social well-being. In this sense different factors related to the citizen participation conception and exercise are associated with higher levels of social wellbeing, ranking as an aspect to be considered from teacher training. In the study a quantitative methodology was applied to analyze the social well-being levels, civic commitment and socio-political participation of 583 future teachers between 17 and 42 years old who were studying different levels of teacher training studies. A battery of Likert-type scales was administered, composed of three scales aimed at evaluating: social well-being, civic engagement, and socio-political activism. The quantitative analyzes based on the ANOVA showed results in which significant differences (p <.001) are evidenced in the social well-being of future teachers based on their educational level being higher in the groups with greater training experience. Furthermore, linear regression analyzes showed that civic engagement (beta =.44; p <.001) predicted the level of social well-being to a greater degree than sociopolitical activism (beta =.36; p <.001) of future teachers. It is concluded that to advance through education towards citizenship with greater civic commitment and social well-being, it will be great considering the training teachers process as well as their different ways of understanding and exercising citizenship.