Gender and age as constraints of job satisfaction among teachers of Spanish as a foreign language

Abstract

Teaching Spanish as a foreign language is an established profession with high demand in the last forty years. Given this situation, research works are needed to analyse aspects such as precariousness, discrimination or job satisfaction of teachers in order to detect weaknesses and point out possible improvements. This study focuses on two factors, age and gender, as determinants of the degree of teacher well-being. In order to describe how both aspects, subordinate the teachers' perception of their labour situation, a validated and reliable questionnaire has been developed. This questionnaire was organized around eight dimensions. Data treatment was carried out using the SPSS program. The main results are that the general satisfaction levels are high, although they decrease among women and younger teachers. This trend is related to the feeling that this profession is vocational and, despite the negative working conditions, teachers are able to deal with them with reasonable success.