Support plays a vital role in the teaching profession. A good support system can empower teachers to regulate their emotions and effectively manage stress while working in isolation. The COVID-19 pandemic has ushered in a hybrid form of education, necessitating the acquisition of new skills by teachers and compelling them to adapt to remote teaching. This new development further amplifies the sense of isolation prevalent amongst the teaching community. Against this backdrop, our study investigates the availability of sociotechnical support infrastructures for teachers in low-income schools while also looking into the support practices embraced by this class of teachers following the pandemic. Through 28 qualitative interviews involving teachers, management and personnel from support organizations, we demonstrate how teachers have largely taken the initiative to establish their own informal support networks in the absence of formal support infrastructures. Smartphones have significantly augmented these support practices, serving as both a valuable source of support as well as a medium for facilitating support practices. However, in comparison to other forms of support received from these sources, the availability of emotion-focused support for teachers have proven to be inadequate, creating imbalances in their support seeking practices. Our paper provides different contextual ways to reduce these imbalances and improve the occupational well-being of teachers.

翻译：支撑在教师职业中发挥着至关重要的作用。良好的支持体系能够帮助教师在孤立状态下调节情绪、有效管理压力。新冠疫情催生了混合教育模式，教师必须掌握新技能并适应远程教学。这一新变化进一步加剧了教师群体普遍存在的孤立感。在此背景下，本研究考察低收入学校教师的社会技术支持基础设施的可获得性，同时探究后疫情时代此类教师群体采用的支持实践。通过对教师、管理层及支持机构人员进行的28项定性访谈，我们发现教师在缺乏正式支持基础设施的情况下，主要主动建立自己的非正式支持网络。智能手机显著强化了这些支持实践，既作为宝贵的支持来源，也作为促进支持实践的媒介。然而，与从这些来源获得的其他形式支持相比，教师获得的情感关注型支持明显不足，导致其寻求支持的行为失衡。本文提供了减少这些失衡、改善教师职业幸福感的多种情境化途径。