Burnout is a psychological syndrome. Furthermore, it is a state of exhaustion, skepticism, and workplace inefficacy. It has become a growing concern in the education sector, as teachers often face a multitude of additional responsibilities to their teaching load, including instructional planning, student assessment, classroom management, personal development, and extracurricular obligations.

Our study on teacher burnout focuses on perceived burnout as experienced by schoolteachers in Kazakhstan. More specifically, we explore and describe their experiences within the context of cultural identity. Cultural identity does not only refer to their professional identity (organizational identity), but it expands to the personal and broader social identity of the educator in and outside of the specific organization. Focusing on cultural identity as a variable, we investigate possible additional information regarding the way in which teachers respond to educational expectations that may be linked to burnout.

Our study is based on a concurrent mixed-methods design consisting of an online questionnaire, the Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT) short version, as well as semi-structured interviews with schoolteachers. For the purpose of the ICERI2024 conference this paper focuses on the qualitative section of the research. After ethical clearance and informed consent were obtained, interviews were conducted with schoolteachers from various regions throughout Kazakhstan. The sample included teachers from primary and secondary public or private schools in rural and urban parts of Kazakhstan. Russian and Kazakh interviews were transcribed and translated into English after which thematic analysis was conducted.

The findings can provide valuable insights and possible guidelines to school management and the education department on how to manage teacher burnout.

Keywords: Cultural identity, education, perceived burnout, schoolteachers.