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Workplace Attachment and Meaning of Work in a French Secondary School

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 June 2013

Liliane Rioux  and
Anne Pignault
Liliane Rioux*
Affiliation:
Paris Ouest Nanterre-La Défense University (France)
Anne Pignault
Affiliation:
Paris Ouest Nanterre-La Défense University (France)
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Liliane Rioux, Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre-La Défense. ProTAPE, EA 4431. Département de Psychologie. 200, avenue de la République 92001. Nanterre (France). E-mail: rioux@wanadoo.fr
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Abstract

This research aims to gain a better understanding of the attachment of teachers to their workplace by identifying the areas to which they become attached and which give meaning to their work. Based on the belief that place attachment is an affective bond between a person and his or her environment (Bonnes & Secchiaroli, 1995), its aim is to identify the attachment of secondary school teachers to their workplace, which is viewed as a whole but also as a combination of specific places, and to show that the places that predict overall workplace attachment are also those that give meaning to work. A Workplace Attachment Scale was completed by 158 teachers in a secondary school in the Paris region (France). This questionnaire contained items evaluating attachment to each specific place of work and others adapted from the meaning-of-work scale evaluating the meaning given to each of these places. The results show that all the teachers were more closely attached to places that provide opportunities for informal communication than to those directly related to teaching. The main workplace attachment predictors also concern places constituting the essence of the profession and/or places where teachers can manage their organizational stress.

Keywords

place attachmentworkplacemeaning of workenvironmental psychology
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 16 , 2013 , E23
Copyright
Copyright © Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2013 

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