AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
COPING WITH SCHOOL FAILURE, STRESS AND SOCIAL SUPPORT IN THE CONTEXT OF
SELF-CARE
a
S
OŇA LOVAŠOVÁ
Department of Social Work, Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in
Košice Faculty of Arts, Moyzesova 9, 040 58 Košice
email:
a
sona.lovasova@upjs.sk
The paper is published within the frame of grant
APVV-14-0921 Self-care as a factor
in coping with negative consequences of the implementation of the helping
professions.
Abstract: The article deals with school failure coping and searching for the relations to
stress, social support and selected areas of self-care. It is based on the assumption, that
self-care, which is absent in the complex perception in the preparation for the
profession of a social worker, as well as for practitioners, can be related to the selected
phenomena. The sample of 217 social science students confirmed the existence of the
relations between the stress experienced and the selection of strategy for coping with
school failure. Stress positively correlated with the social support as well, in particular
with the areas as family and friends. Differences in the selection of strategies of school
failure coping depending of the faith, alcohol abuse frequency and place of residence.
Keywords: Coping with school failure, stress, social support, self-care.
1 Introduction
Social work is a very demanding assisting profession. Its domain
is providing assistance and care to the others. The social workers
definitely need good intentional long life self-care to be able to
perform their profession well. There are many studies proving
the fact, that the workers in the most demanding positions
neglect self-care (Figley 2002, Burton, Pakenham, Brown 2010,
Hricová, Vargová 2014), which can show by occurrence of
various negative phenomena at work (Figley 2002).
2 Self-care
Self-care is an extensive term involving several parts and it is
presented in the form of several concepts. The literature defines
self-care as a system of individual activities serving to help the
assisting workers to cope with different external and internal
challenges they face. Its definitions and contents are different
regarding their professions. However, their essence is aware/
intentional performing activities for regulation of human
functioning and development (Denyes, Orem, Bekel 2001).
Godfrey, Harrison, Lysaght, Lamb, Graham a Oakley (2011)
defined according to contentual analysis 139 definitions of self-
care, seven factors which were contained in the definitions and
in which they differed. The factors were assorted from the
aspects of: health, illness and disability, general consequences:
self-care performer, professional health care workers and the
aspect of health care system.
Many of the definitions are based on the medical aspect and they
involve above all the self-care part. According to Lovas (2014) it
is important to clarify the relationship between the terms self-
care and health care. The term of self-care involves from the
psychological aspect above all the aspect “self”. In such
perception it is possible to understand health care as one of the
parts of self-care. Self-care then according to Lovas (2014)
presents a summary of intentionally, self-regulation based
performed activities related to health, physical and psychological
well-being and personal development.
The issue of self-care is within social work practice often
discussed in the context of ethical issues. A part of keeping the
competencies of social workers within providing professional
services it is important for the assisting worker to be in the state
of physical, mental and spiritual well-being (Profitt 2009). An
ideal concept of self-care is its widest perception. Abroad it has
been considered an inevitable part of performing assisting
professions for decades.
In performing the assisting professions, it is appropriate to view
self-care as a part of the professional life and it should be
involved in the preparation for occupation.
3 Coping with school failure
Stress and coping with it are at present a part of everyday life.
For the young people school and coping with school failure can
present some of the stress sources and burden in it-self. Success
or failure at school can prove to which extent the student has
fluffed his studying objectives. We can talk about success, if the
student has managed higher standards with small problems.
Failure is characterized by difficulties and incapability to
achieve requested objectives and often it involves other
problems (Chitty 2009). The consequences of school failure can
have far reaching impact on the individual, educational problems
are for young people often related to undesired reactions.
There are several theories, which explain school failure from
different aspects (Chitty 2009). The theory of intelligence is
based on finding IQ score. Supporters of this theory express
opinion, that intelligence can be hereditary. However, this theory
is severely criticized by sociologists, who claim, that there is
correlation between genetics and environmental impacts, that IQ
tests are culturally prejudiced – non-objective, as they are based
on the average values. The theory of cultural deprivation relates
school success to the communication skills. According to its
supporters, there is a relation between socio-economic factors
and language skills of the individual. This has according to them
an impact on education of an individual and his school success
(Giavrimis, Papanis 2008).
The theory of material deprivation relates school failure to
poverty. This theory is based on the idea, that poor environment
brings about vulnerability to diseases, accidents and lacking
educational opportunities. The theory of interaction assumed,
that the evaluation criteria of teachers are based on their cultural
background. This is related to certain stereotypes, which can put
some students to disadvantage, some authors even claim that
there are the so called attributes if an ideal student, which can be
considered by the teacher to be a more important criterion than
learning (Wiggan 2007).
According to Carey (2003), regarding school failure, it is
necessary to consider factors from several areas: the student´s
personality, which involves factors as IQ score, faith in own
skills, motivation, in relation to school mates or absences.
Another area is represented by school factors involving general
climate and culture of the school, educational plans, evaluation,
size of class rooms, qualities of teachers and quantity of
homework. The family represents the factors as interest of
parents in their child´s education, education of parents, discipline
in the family, relations in the family. The last area is the aspect
of gender, race and cultural and socio economic indicators.
The issue of success and failure at school is often related also to
specialisation, or target orientation and motivation of students.
Target orientation is also related to coping with school failure.
According to Brdar, Rijavec and Loncaric (2006) there is a
relation between target orientation, coping with failure and
school success. In their opinion it is important to distinguish
learning orientation, where the emphasis is placed on
understanding, acquiring knowledge, improving competencies
and skills. The main idea is that performance of the rest is
irrelevant, if I try, I will achieve success, it is irrelevant if the
success is achieved by the rest. Performance orientation is
characterized by the effort to prove high skills and evaluation in
comparison to the others, with efforts or endeavor of no value.
4 Social support
Social support has been analyzed in more details in the last 40
years. The first authors dealing with it are Cassel, Caplan a Cobb
(Mareš 2004). This theory involves different specific approaches
which research it in different lines. Some experts (House 1981,
Stewart 1993) point out, that in the quantity of definitions it is
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