ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Mental Health and Wellbeing in Education
Work Dilemmas and Job Satisfaction of Banzhurens (class teachers) in Chinese Primary School - A Case Study
Provisionally accepted
- University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
This study investigates the working dilemmas and job satisfaction of Chinese primary school banzhurens (class teachers) using a qualitative case study approach. Building on previous quantitative findings, semi-structured interviews with seven banzhurens from G City, China reveal that (1) these banzhurens bore excessive workload and a wider job scope than subject specialist teachers; (2) the overwhelming workload and job responsibilities caused burnout, which further harmed their job satisfaction; and (3) other influences on their job satisfaction were stress, excessive non-teaching-related tasks, and insufficient reward, while student progress offered a sense of satisfaction in their work. Based on the findings, some potential solutions and strategies are proposed to enhance banzhurens' job satisfaction, professional development and well-being.
Keywords: burnout, Chinese banzhurens, Class teacher, Job Satisfaction, self-efficacy
Received: 04 Aug 2025; Accepted: 16 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Bai and Lai. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ka Bai
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.