Professional well-being in multilingual classrooms: a moderated mediation analysis of organisational support and work-related stress

Abstract

Proliferation of linguistic diversity in educational settings offers both enriching opportunities and complex challenges that may strain teachers emotionally and compromise their professional well-being. This study employs a moderated mediation framework to examine the relationship between multilingual workload and professional well-being, by testing the mediating role of work-related stress and the moderating role of organisational support, using data from 43,652 teachers across 15 countries and economies in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022. Findings reveal that multilingual teaching is negatively associated with professional well-being. Mediation analysis indicates that this association is largely explained by work-related stress. Moreover, organisational support moderates both the direct and indirect links between multilingual workload and professional well-being. Overall, these findings offer valuable insights into the mechanisms that can enhance professional well-being through prioritising teacher emotions and organisational supportive practices in diverse linguistic contexts.