Teacher Well-Being as a System of Professional Viability: A Comparative Ecological Analysis of Primary and Secondary CLIL Teachers in Andalusia, Spain

Abstract

This study identifies two stage-specific configurations of CLIL teacher well-being in Andalusia: an ecology of proximity in Primary Education and a disciplinary-departmental ecology in Secondary Education. Drawing on 14 semi-structured interviews with seven Primary and seven Secondary teachers, the study used a deductive–inductive ecological analysis combining within-case, cross-case, cross-stage, and subsystem-coupling procedures in QDA Miner. Participants described professional well-being not merely as a subjective psychological state but in terms of professional viability: the perceived ecological enactability of pedagogically legitimate and sustainable practice. Primary teachers’ accounts foregrounded sustained pupil contact, tutorial responsibility, family expectations, classroom routines, and adaptation for younger learners. Secondary teachers’ accounts foregrounded subject specialisation, departmental organisation, heterogeneous language proficiency, assessment ambiguity, and the Primary–Secondary transition. Across both stages, participants described compensatory overfunctioning—additional care, coordination, material redesign, translation, and assessment work undertaken to keep CLIL operational when implementation conditions were perceived as insufficient. Protected coordination time, stage-specific training, shared assessment frameworks, appropriate materials, and transition structures emerged as potential regulatory leverage points. The study advances a phase-sensitive systems interpretation of teacher well-being by identifying a fast balancing loop of frontline adaptation and a slower reinforcing stabilisation trap through which restored continuity may conceal persistent underprovision.