Abstract:

Workplace, such as a school, creates the context of everyday experiences of persons working within it – the roles, tasks and functions undertaken by these persons (teachers, students, parents, school authorities). This is, therefore, the place where various social interactions characterized by elements of power, affiliation, antagonisms, cooperation, opposition, resistance etc., are carried out. For teachers, the school is a source of personal, professional, autocreation experiences as well as numerous failures. All these experiences determine the way the school is perceived as a place of teachers' life, conditioning their professional and life activity, well-being and fulfillment. From the perspective of the theoretical assumptions it follows that biographical experiences, important and significant people around, the culture of the social environment in which they live, formal and informal rules regulating everyday life at work, and many other factors shape the way of perception of the workplace and the quality and efficiency of the professional and non-professional life of the teachers. It was therefore considered that the analysis of workplace experience, its senses and meanings is extremely important from the perspective of the well-being at the workplace, involvement in educational activities, as well as professional development and professional satisfaction.

For the research purposes, the content of diaries and journals obtained through the competition was used . Diaries, journals, unfortunately, are used to a small degree in social sciences. However, both for researchers and authors of diaries, diaries and journals are an extremely important source of cognition, because they allow "to analyze the course of life with all its complexities, problems, dilemmas and social contexts" . Therefore, the contents of 93 diaries and diaries were analyzed in order to obtain an answer to the research question: How is school described as a workplace in teacher experiences? In order to fully exploit the research material, a biographical method was used. Biography, in fact, describes in the best way the experiences and definitions of a person, a group or organization, just as a person, group or organization interprets them.

Uwe Flick thinks that when we look for data in documents, we do not "select people or situations to create a set of data through their methodological research, but we use existing materials that we select for the analysis. The order here is therefore reversed: first we have materials, then we choose from them, and then we use specific research methods" . The selection of a sample in qualitative research does not only mean "choosing cases and materials, but making choices within cases and materials".

Because of the qualitative research orientation, no conclusions have been made in the empirical part, nor the theses regarding any trends in the social dimension. The obtained research results are therefore fragmentary and can be referred mainly to the surveyed teachers.

Keywords:

School, teachers´experience, workplace, diares, qualitative research.