Die doeltreffendheid van 'n streshanteringsprogram vir onderwysers van die Departement Onderwys en Opleiding

English: This study investigates the prevalence of stress among a group of black teachers at four secondary schools in the Bloemfontein city area and includes a stress-management programme that was presented to these. teachers. There exists a great shortage of research about teacher stress within the context of the black South African community. In the literature the occurrence. of stres is approached from different viewpoints and stress research. stretches over a broad and comprehensive area. The researcher has chosen the interactional model of stress from the various models available. This model focuses on factors that cause stress, stress reactions and coping mechani~ms. A literature study on stress among teachers in general is presented, after which attention is devoted to stress as experienced by black_teachers in the RSA. In the . course of the study the researcher at first followed an experimental research approach, but because of practical problems that was encountered, this had to be abandoned. ·She next decided to adopt the principals of action research, an approach which emphasises the involvement of the researcher, as well as an effort to change the behaviour of the participants in the project by means of the research. Data were collected by means of the Stress Audit . Questionnaire and a semi-structured interview, based on the Egan Helping Model (1990). No statistical revision of the questionnaire data could be done due to a shortage of respondents. Nevertheless it was possible to arrive at a few conclusions which may afford a certain amount of insight into the problem. The interviews have provided particularly valuable information. There had been three interviews with the teachers. A stress management programme was presented during the second interview. During the third interview the programme was evaluated and further needs were determined. The results of the questionaire show that almost all the teachers see themselves as capable of handling stress, but that about a third of the group have exceptionally high levels of stres·s. The researcher does not regard this results as reliable, however. Results of the interviews show that a lot of stressors is connected with the work-situation of the teachers. These stress-factors could be properly identified by the teachers, but they feel incapable of doing anything about the situation. Support and help from collegues, the community and especially teaching authorities seem to be a great need. The researcher recommends that action research be used to develop a stress management programme that takes the unique needs of the black teacher into account.