Where the School Bell Meets the Dinner Bell: New Study Maps Role Conflict Among Female Teachers

For millions of women who stand at the front of a classroom by day and shoulder the bulk of household duties by night, the competing demands of work and family are not an abstract concept but a daily negotiation. A new mixed-methods study published in Discover Education by Moomina Jan and Tasleema Jan of the University of Kashmir offers one of the most detailed portraits yet of how this tension, known in social psychology as role conflict, plays out among female secondary school teachers, and how sharply it differs depending on whether a teacher works in an urban or a rural setting. The findings carry implications not just for the teachers themselves but for school administrators and policymakers seeking to protect the mental health and professional effectiveness of a workforce that is increasingly dominated by women.

The research team set out to answer three linked questions: how prevalent role conflict is among female secondary school teachers, whether it differs between rural and urban locales, and what school leaders believe can be done to reduce it. The study was grounded in Role Theory, the framework developed by Robert L. Kahn and colleagues in their 1964 work Organizational Stress: Studies in Role Conflict and Ambiguity. According to that theory, every person occupies multiple social roles, each carrying its own set of expectations. When the expectations attached to two or more roles are incompatible, psychological strain follows. The authors distinguish three forms of the phenomenon: inter-role conflict, in which the demands of different positions clash, such as when motherhood and teaching both require time and emotional energy at the same moment; intra-role conflict, in which expectations within a single role diverge, as when students want warmth and flexibility from a teacher while school management demands strict academic rigor; and person-role conflict, which arises when the requirements of a role contradict an individual’s own values or abilities.

The theoretical backdrop matters because female teachers are, in the authors’ framing, especially vulnerable to inter-role conflict. Gender Role Theory holds that women are expected to carry a disproportionate share of household and caregiving labor, which raises the probability that their personal and professional roles will collide. The Work-Family Conflict Model adds that such collisions can be time-based, strain-based, or behavior-based, and that each variety can produce stress and diminished satisfaction. Earlier research cited in the paper links work-family conflict among teachers to elevated stress and burnout, reduced job satisfaction, lower psychological well-being, and higher turnover intentions, with work demands interfering with family life exerting a particularly strong effect. Yet, the authors note, little attention had been paid to how this conflict varies with the educational setting, the gap their study set out to fill.

Methodologically, the investigation was ambitious. The researchers employed a multistage, stratified random sampling procedure to recruit 450 female secondary school teachers from government schools in Kashmir, 254 from urban areas and 196 from rural ones, all of them teaching classes nine and ten. Quantitative data were collected using the Teachers Role Conflict Scale developed by Nain and Gupta, an instrument whose test-retest reliability coefficient was reported at +0.94 at the 0.01 level, with content validity established through expert opinion and item analysis. The scale measures six dimensions of role conflict. In parallel, the team gathered qualitative data through an open-ended opinionnaire administered to twenty Head Teachers selected purposively, chosen because their experience positioned them to offer informed perspectives on the remedies schools could adopt. Crucially, the qualitative and quantitative strands were collected simultaneously and independently, with the interview questions derived from prior literature rather than from the survey results, an embedded mixed-methods design the authors argue strengthened the credibility and depth of the conclusions.

The statistical analysis relied on descriptive and inferential techniques, including means, standard deviations, percentages, and t-tests, while the qualitative responses were subjected to thematic analysis, in which the data were read repeatedly, coded, and organized into recurring themes. The rigor of the process was assessed against recognized criteria: credibility, dependability, transferability, confirmability, and authenticity, supported by peer debriefing meetings, meticulous documentation of every research step, reflexivity on the part of the investigators, and adherence to the GRAMMS framework for reporting mixed-methods studies. Six response sheets were excluded during scrutiny for incomplete information, leaving the final sample of 450.

The headline quantitative result is striking for what it does and does not show. Eighty-two percent of the respondents reported a low level of role conflict, 15.4 percent reported an average level, and only 2.6 percent reported a high level. In other words, despite juggling teaching, administration, caregiving, and domestic labor, the large majority of these women reported managing their roles well or benefiting from supportive environments. When the researchers compared the mean scores of the urban and rural groups, however, the t-value of 0.46 indicated that the difference was not statistically significant. This finding partially complicates the study’s own summary observation that urban teachers experience higher conflict than their rural counterparts; at the level of mean comparison, geography alone did not separate the groups, suggesting that role conflict is shaped more by institutional and social factors than by locale per se. The authors themselves draw this conclusion in their discussion, arguing that the school environment, not the postcode, is the decisive variable.

The qualitative strand reveals what those institutional and social factors actually are. Among the negative forces identified through thematic analysis, excessive workload and multiple responsibilities ranked first. Head Teachers described teachers burdened with administrative and non-teaching duties that pull them away from their core instructional role. One respondent stated plainly that her school did not provide sufficient support because teachers were overburdened with multiple roles beyond teaching, and recommended that administrative tasks be assigned to dedicated support staff, that regular feedback sessions be held, and that duties be divided according to teachers’ interests. A second respondent spoke of tremendous pressure on working women in the education department to balance work and household, and proposed extra work be limited to the teaching domain, small breaks be introduced, and crèches or day care centers be arranged for the young children of teaching staff.

Staff shortages and uneven job distribution emerged as a second aggravating factor, with respondents pointing to insufficient staffing and favoritism by supervisors as sources of conflict, alongside a lack of proper job distribution within schools. A third theme concerned the absence of structured policies, with respondents calling for improved task allocation and supportive administrative practices. The fourth negative theme was inadequate work-life balance support; one Head Teacher recommended additional leave and flexible timings to counter the exhaustion created by the collision of school and family demands. On the positive side, the analysis identified congeniality of the work environment, where cordial relationships between teaching and non-teaching staff and a non-transferable posting foster mutual support; community building and flexible scheduling, including professional development integrated into work schedules or school breaks; and systematic workload management, including streamlining administrative tasks and investing in digital tools that reduce paperwork, grading burdens, and data collection chores.

The discussion situates these findings within the wider literature. The authors note that empirical studies consistently show female teachers face higher role conflict than male colleagues, and that their results align with work by Thakur, Chandrasekaran, and Guddattu, who found that role overload and unclear organizational structures significantly affect teachers’ psychological well-being, and by Saif-ud-Din and colleagues, who linked inadequate staffing and inequitable task allocation to stress and reduced professional satisfaction. The protective factors they identified echo the findings of Skaalvik and Skaalvik, who reported that collegial support, autonomy, and structured workload distribution foster job satisfaction and reduce burnout. The authors also acknowledge the study’s limitations: the sample is confined to a specific population of female secondary school teachers, limiting generalizability; the reliance on self-reported data introduces the possibility of social desirability bias; and the cross-sectional design precludes causal inference.

The conclusion the authors draw is that role conflict is not merely an individual problem to be solved by personal resilience but an organizational matter that can be reduced through planning and supportive management. In the Indian context, where women continue to shoulder a disproportionate share of domestic responsibilities, the stakes are especially high. Reducing structural problems, ensuring an equitable sharing of duties, and cultivating a positive, understanding school culture, the authors argue, can substantially lower role conflict, improve teacher well-being, and enhance overall school performance. For schools and policymakers, the practical prescription is concrete: address workload, clarify policies, promote a culture of cooperation, and provide a welcoming workplace atmosphere. As the teaching profession grows more attractive to younger generations of women, the study suggests that the mental health of educators, particularly women, depends less on where a school sits on the map and more on how the institution chooses to share its burdens.

Subject of Research: Role conflict among female secondary school teachers in urban and rural settings

Article Title: A comprehensive mixed-methods investigation of role conflict among female secondary school teachers across locales

Article References: Jan, M., & Jan, T. (2026). A comprehensive mixed-methods investigation of role conflict among female secondary school teachers across locales. Discover Education, 5(1), Article 1147. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44217-026-01898-9

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44217-026-01898-9

Keywords: role conflict, female teachers, secondary education, work-family conflict, mixed methods, urban-rural comparison, teacher well-being, workload management, Role Theory, Kashmir, school administration, gender roles