School Teachers’ Traumatic Experiences and Responses in the Context of a Large Scale Earthquake in China

This article investigates the traumatic experience of teachers who experienced the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, China. A survey measuring participants' personal experiences, professional demands, and psychological responses was distributed to 241 teachers in five selected schools. Although the status of schoolteachers' trauma in a postdisaster situation has been explored in other countries, to date no comparable study has been made in China. The findings of this study address the literature gap by providing a picture of schoolteachers' personal and professional experience, their working conditions, and their coping strategies in a postdisaster situation.