Understanding emotional rules in the teaching profession: a study with female elementary school teachers
Abstract
The objective of the study was to identify and characterize the emotional rules that female elementary school teachers perceive in their work. From a qualitative approach, in-depth and episodic interviews were conducted with four female teachers. Four emotional rules were identified: teachers must feel passion for their work; they must maintain emotional balance in their work; they must bond affectively with their students; they must regulate between giving affection and setting limits in their relationship with them. Four characteristics were recognized: the emotional rules are implicit; they are defined on the basis of personal and professional principles; non-compliance with these rules generates self-critical reflections in the teachers and forms of external control for their compliance are recognized. It is discussed how the rules identified are consistent with the literature; these rules are fundamentally deployed in the relationship with students and their forms of control could be influenced by accountability policies.
Keywords
Emotions, Teachers, Teachers’ Emotional Rules, Emotional LaborReferences
Assaél, Jenny; Cornejo, Rodrigo; Etcheberrigaray, Gabriel; Albornoz, Natalia; Hidalgo Felipe; Ligüeño, Sebastian & Palacios, Diego (2015). La crisis del modelo educativo mercantil chileno: un complejo escenario. Currículo sem Fronteiras, 15(2), 334-335.
Barreiro, Telma (2009). Los del Fondo. Conflictos, convivencia e inclusión en el aula. Noveduc Libros.
Bellocchi, Alberto (2019). Early career science teacher experiences of social bonds and emotion management. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 56(3), 322-347. https://doi.org/10.1002/tea.21520
Bodenheimer, Grayson & Shuster, Setf (2020). Emotional labour, teaching and burnout: Investigating complex relationships. Educational Research, 62(1), 63-76. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131881.2019.1705868
Boler, Megan (1999). Feeling Power: Emotions and Education. Routledge.
Brown, Elizabeth; Horner, Christy; Kerr, Mary & Scanlon, Christina (2014). United States teachers’ emotional labor and professional identities. Kedi Journal of Educational Policy, 11(2), 205-225. https://doi.org/10.22804/kjep.2014.11.2.004
Camphuijsen, Marjolein; Levantino, Antonina; Mentini, Laura & Parcerisa, Lluís (2022). Teaching as affective labor in a datafied world: a scoping review of the relationship between performance-based accountability and teachers’ emotions. Foro de educación, 20(2), 61-84. https://doi.org/10.14516/fde.1023
Carrasco Aguilar, Claudia; Luzón, Antonio & López, Verónica (2019). Identidad docente y políticas de accountability: el caso de Chile. Estudios pedagógicos, 45(2), 121-139. https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-07052019000200121
Chen, Junjun (2019). Research review on teacher emotion in Asia between 1988 and 2017: Research topics, research types and research methods. Frontiers in Psychology, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01628
Chen, Junjun & Cheng, Tianjun (2021). Review of research on teacher emotion during 1985-2019: a descriptive quantitative analysis of knowledge production trends. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 37, 417-438. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-021-00537-1
Christoforou, Paraskevi & Ashforth, Blake (2015). Revisiting the debate on the relationship between display rules and performance: Considering the explicitness of display rules. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(1), 249-261. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036871
Cornejo, Rodrigo; Albornoz, Natalia; Castañeda, Lorena; Palacios, Diego; Etcheberrigaray, Gabriel; Fernández, Rocío; Gómez, Sergio; Hidalgo, Felipe & Lagos, Juan Ignacio (2015). Las prescripciones del trabajo docente en el nuevo marco regulatorio de políticas educativas en Chile. Psicoperspectivas, 14(2), 72-83. https://doi.org/10.5027/psicoperspectivas-Vol14-Issue2-fulltext-580
Cornejo, Rodrigo; Etcheberrigaray, Gabriel; Vargas, Sebastián; Assáel, Jenny; Araya, Rodrigo & Redondo-Rojo, Jesús (2021). Actividades emocionales del trabajo docente: un estudio de shadowing en Chile. Quaderns de Psicologia, 23(1), 1-26. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/qpsicologia.1689
Denzin, Norman (1984). On understanding emotion. Jossey Bass Publishers.
Denzin, Norman & Lincoln, Yvonna (1998). The landscape of qualitative research. Sage Publications.
D’Oliveira-martins, Madalena (2018). Arlie Russell Hochschild: Un camino hacia el corazón de la sociología. Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas.
Edwards, Lisa (2016). Looking after the teachers: Exploring the emotional labor experienced by teachers of looked after children. Educational Psychology in Practice, 32(1), 54-72. https://doi.org/10.1080/02667363.2015.1112256
Falabella, Alejandra (2020) The ethics of competition: accountability policy enactment in Chilean schools’ everyday life. Journal of Education Policy, 35(1), 23-45.
Fardella, Carla & Sisto, Vicente (2015). Nuevas Regulaciones del trabajo docente en Chile. Discurso, subjetividad y resistencia. Psicologia & Sociedade, 27(1), 68-79. https://doi.org/10.1590/1807-03102015v27n1p068
Flick, Uwe (2004). Introducción a la Investigación Cualitativa. Ediciones Morata.
Gross, James (1998). The Emerging Field of Emotion Regulation: An Integrative Review. Review of General Psychology, 2(3), 271-299. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.3.271
Hargreaves, Andy (1998). The emotional practice of teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 14(8), 835-854. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0742-051X(98)00025-0
Hargreaves, Andy (2001). The emotional geographies of teachers’ relations with colleagues. International Journal of Educational Research, 35(5), 503-527. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0883-0355(02)00006-X
Hochschild, Arlie (1979). Emotion work, feeling rules, and social structure. American Journal of Sociology, 85(3), 551-575. https://doi.org/doi:10.1086/227049
Hochschild, Arlie (1983/2003). The managed heart. Commercialization of hu-man feeling. University of California Press.
Hochschild, Arlie (2008). La mercantilización de la Vida Íntima: Apuntes para la casa y el trabajo. Katz.
Holstein, James & Gubrium, Jaber (1995). The Active Interview. Sage.
Horner, Christy; Brown, Elizabeth; Mehta, Swati & Scanlon, Christina (2020). Feeling and acting like a teacher: Reconceptualizing teachers’ emotional labor. Teachers College Record, 122(5). https://doi.org/10.1177/016146812012200502
Hypolito, Álvaro (2011). Reorganização Gerencialista da Escola e Trabalho Docente. Educação: Teoria e Prática, 21(38), 59-78.
Isenbarger, Lynn & Zembylas, Michalinos (2006) The emotional labour of caring in teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 22(1), 120-134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2005.07.002
Leblanc, Robert (2018). Managed confrontation and the managed heart: Gendered teacher talk through reported speech. Classroom Discourse, 9(2), 150-165. https://doi.org/10.1080/19463014.2018.1441728
Loh, Chin & Liew, Warren (2016). Voices from the ground: The emotional labour of English teachers’ work. Teaching and Teacher Education, 55, 267-278. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2016.01.016
Martínez, Deolidia; Collazo, Marité & Liss, Manuel (2009). Dimensiones del trabajo docente: una propuesta de abordaje del malestar y el sufrimiento psíquico de los docentes en la Argentina. Educação & Sociedade, 30(107), 389-408. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0101-73302009000200005
Neary, Aoife; Gray, Breda & O’Sullivan, Mary (2016). A queer politics of emotion: Reimagining sexualities and schooling. Gender and Education, 28(2), 250-265. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2015.1114074
O’Connor, Kate (2008). You choose to care: Teachers, emotions and professional identity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24, 117-126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2006.11.008
Olson, Rebecca; Mckenzie, Jordan; Mills, Kathy; Patulny, Roger; Bellocchi, Alberto & Caristo, Fiona (2019). Gendered emotion management and teacher outcomes in secondary school teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 80, 128-144. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2019.01.010
Oplatka, Izhar (2007). Managing emotions in teaching: Toward an understanding of emotion displays and caring as non prescribed role elements. Teachers College Record, 109(6), 1374-1400. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146810710900603
Pekrun, Reinhard & Linnenbrink-Garcia, Lisa (2014). International Handbook of Emotions in Education. Routledge.
Rodríguez, Gregorio; Gil, Javier & García, Eduardo (1996). Métodos de investigación cualitativa. Ediciones Aljibe.
Sisto, Vicente & Fardella, Carla (2008). Narrándose en la flexibilidad. Un análisis narrativo discursivo de la identidad en tiempos de flexibilidad laboral. Revista de Psicología, 17(2), 59-80. https://doi.org/10.5354/0719-0581.2008.17137
Stake, Robert (1998). Investigación con estudio de casos. Ediciones Morata.
Stark, Kristabel & Bettini, Elizabeth (2021). Teachers’ perceptions of emotional display rules in schools: A systematic review. Teaching and Teacher Education. 104, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2021.103388
Steinberg, Carola (2008). Assessment as an “emotional practice”. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, Educational Research, 7(3), 42-64.
Strauss, Anselm & Corbin, Juliet (2002). Bases de la investigación cualitativa. Técnicas y procedimientos para desarrollar la teoría fundamentada. Universidad de Antioquia.
Tsang, Kwok (2011). Emotional labor of teaching. Educational Research, 2(8), 1312-1316.
Tsang, Kwok (2018). Teachers’ work and emotions: A sociological analysis. Routledge.
Uitto, Minna; Jokikokko, Katri & Estola, Eila (2015). Virtual special issue on teachers and emotions in Teaching and teacher education (TATE) in 1985-2014. Teaching and Teacher Education, 50, 124-135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2015.05.008
Verger, Antoni & Normand, Romuald (2015). Nueva gestión pública y educación: elementos teóricos y conceptuales para el estudio de un modelo de reforma educativa global. Educação & Sociedade, 36(132), 599-622. https://doi.org/10.1590/ES0101-73302015152799
Wang, Hui; Hall, Nathan & Taxer, Jamie (2019). Antecedents and Consequences of Teachers’ Emotional Labor: a Systematic Review and Meta-analytic Investigation. Educational Psychology Review, 31, 1-36. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-019-09475-3
Winograd, Ken (2003). The functions of teacher emotions: The good, the bad, and the ugly. Teachers College Record, 105(9), 1641-1673. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1467-9620.2003.00304
Yin, Hong-biao & Lee, John (2012). Be passionate, but be rational as well: Emotional rules for Chinese teachers’ work. Teaching and Teacher Education, 28, 56-65. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2011.08.005
Yin, Hongbiao (2016). Knife-like mouth and tofu-like heart: Emotion regulation by Chinese teachers in classroom teaching. Social Psychology of Education, 19, 1-22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-015-9319-5
Zembylas, Michalinos (2002). Structures of feeling in curriculum and teaching: Theorizing the emotional rules. Educational Theory, 52(2), 187-208. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-5446.2002.00187.x
Zembylas, Michalinos (2004). The emotional characteristics of teaching: an ethnographic study of one teacher. Teaching and Teacher education, 20(2), 185-201. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2003.09.008
Zembylas, Michalinos (2005). Discursive practices, genealogies, and emotional rules: A poststructuralist view on emotion and identity in teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21(8), 935-948. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2005.06.005
Published
Downloads
Copyright (c) 2023 Rodrigo Araya Moreno, Rodrigo Cornejo Chávez, Jenny Assaél Budnik, Sebastián Vargas Pérez , Gabriel Etcheberrigaray Torres, Jesús Redondo-Rojo

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.