‘It feels like I am being forced to harm a child’: research shows how teachers are suffering moral injury

Australia is in the grip of a teacher shortage. Teachers are burning out, warning the job is no longer sustainable and leaving the profession.

We know this is due to excessive workloads, stress and abuse. But research suggests there is another element at play: some teachers are also experiencing moral injury.

Moral injury occurs when teachers are forced to act against their values – leaving them feeling disillusioned and complicit in harm. In my study of 57 Australian teachers, many shared emotionally-charged accounts of being put in impossible situations at work.

What is moral injury?

Moral injury is when professionals cannot act in line with their values due to external demands.

It differs from burnout or compassion fatigue: burnout stems from chronic stress and compassion fatigue comes from emotional overload.

Moral injury was initially developed in military psychology but has since been applied to healthcare and education – professions where high-stakes ethical decision-making and institutional failures often collide.

Previous studies on moral injury in schools have shown how rigid disciplinary policies, high-stakes testing regimes and chronic underfunding often force teachers to act in ways that contradict their professional judgement. This can lead to frustration, guilt and professional disillusionment.

Recent studies have reframed moral injury as a systemic issue rather than an individual psychological condition. This is because institutional constraints – such as inflexible accountability measures and bureaucratic inefficiencies – prevent teachers from fulfilling their ethical responsibilities.

My new study

This research stems from an initial study, which looked at burnout in Australian teachers.

The initial study included a national sample of 2,000 educators. This new study is a subset of 57 teachers who participated in follow-up surveys and focus groups. The teachers were a mix of primary and secondary teachers and some also held leadership positions within their schools.

While the original study focused on compassion fatigue and burnout, a striking pattern emerged: teachers repeatedly described moral conflicts in their work.

‘It feels like I’m being forced to harm a child’

A key theme of the new research was teachers having to enforce school or departmental policies they believed were harmful. This was particularly the case when it came to discipline. As one teacher described:

The policy says I should suspend a student for attendance issues, but their home life is falling apart. How does that help? It feels like I’m being forced to harm a child instead of helping them.

Others talked about having to focus on standardised tests (for example, NAPLAN), rather than using their professional judgement to meet children’s individual needs. This is a contentious issue for teachers.

As one high school teacher told us:

We’re asked to push students through the curriculum even when we know they haven’t grasped the basics […] but we’re the ones who carry the guilt.

A primary teacher similarly noted:

Teaching to the test means leaving so many kids behind. It’s not what education should be.

‘It’s heartbreaking’

Teachers also spoke about teaching in environments that were not adequately resourced. In some schools, teacher shortages were so severe that unqualified staff were delivering classes:

We’ve got classes being taught by teacher aides […] but that’s because we don’t have enough staff.

Or in other classes, students were not getting the help they needed.

Larger class sizes and fewer staff mean that the kids who need the most attention are getting the least. It’s heartbreaking.

The emotional impact was profound, as one high school teacher told us:

At some point, you stop fighting. You realise that no matter how many times you raise concerns, nothing changes. It’s like the system is designed to wear you down until you just comply.

What can schools do to prevent moral injury?

While these findings are confronting, teachers also gave positive examples of what can buffer against moral injury in the workplace. This involved listening to teachers and including them in policies and decisions.

One primary teacher told us how their school had changed their disciplinary approach:

Our school’s push for restorative justice instead of punitive measures has been a game changer. It lets us address the root causes of issues instead of just punishing kids.

Others talked about being asked to collaborate with school leadership to address discipline issues. As one primary teacher said:

We helped create a new behaviour management framework. Having a say in the process made all the difference.

What now?

My research indicates when teachers are consistently asked to compromise their ethics, they don’t just burn out, they question the integrity of the entire system.

This suggests if we want to keep teachers in classrooms, we need to do more than lighten their workloads. We need to make sure they are no longer placed in positions where doing their job means going against their professional values.

This means teachers need to feel heard, respected and empowered in classrooms and schools.