DEMOGRAPHIC DETERMINANTS AND COPING STRATEGIES OF SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS - A COMPARATIVE STUDY

The present paper aimed at studying coping strategies used by male and female secondary school teachers from
different streams of teaching with different years of experience. 750 teachers of Govt. secondary schools of Punjab from four
districts namely Mohali, Patiala, Ropar and Fatehgarh sahib were selected randomly for the purpose. The ways of coping
questionnaire by Folkman and lazarus (1988) was used to assess the coping strategies used by the secondary school teachers
of Punjab. The findings of the study revealed that teachers from mathematics and science streams use ‘Planful problem
solving’ strategy for coping stress followed by ‘Seeking Social support’ strategy whereas, teachers from other streams of
teaching prefer to use ‘Seeking Social support’ strategy for coping stress followed by ‘Self Controlling’. It was also found that
‘Seeking social support’ strategy to combat stress has been the most widely used strategy for teachers irrespective of gender,
different years of experience and different streams of teaching.