Emotional Trajectory at Different Career Stages: Two Excellent Teachers’ Stories

Abstract

The current study aimed to investigate excellent teachers' emotional journey, particularly, the trajectory of emotional experiences and emotional labor strategies at different career phases. The research used a case-study approach to explore the storied experience of two teachers (female and male) who were bestowed the Provincial Excellent Teacher Award. They were close to retirement so they could retrieve emotional experiences from across their entire career. Individual semi-structured interviews were utilized as a major data source, supplemented with relevant documentation and phone calls to achieve data triangulation. Thematic analysis was adopted to deal with data. The findings demonstrated a dynamic pattern of emotions and emotional labor, transiting from one teacher career stage to another. It was observed that the female teacher experienced mixed emotions but the male teacher had more negative emotions at the early stage. Both teachers claimed more positive emotions in the middle stage and a high level of satisfaction in the late stage. Both of them employed genuine expression and surface acting strategies in the first two stages. In the late stage, the female teacher used a combination of genuine expression and deep acting with more empathy, whilst the male teacher adopted a combination of surface acting and genuine expression aiming for a neutral atmosphere. Social values, organizational demands professional self, and gender are discussed for possibly resulting in these discrepancies.

Teacher Leaders’ Emotions Mirror Teacher Professionalism via Collegial Trust

“…Specifically, optimistic emotions (e.g., pride and love) from teacher leaders positively and significantly affected teacher trust in colleagues. This result aligns with the studies (Arar and Oplatka 2018 ; Chen and Walker 2021 ) that reported that principals from Israel conveyed their pleasant emotions to create an optimistic school culture. However, teacher trust in principals is the prerequisite to ensuring this transit.…”

“…It is universally acknowledged that teaching and school leadership are both high-risk jobs (Chen et al 2020a , b ; Riley 2018 ). After being underplayed for decades, research on both teachers’ and principals’ emotions has blossomed recently (e.g., Chen 2020a ; Crawford 2019 ).…”

“…Some research has investigated the impact of teacher emotions on professional learning, wellbeing, and effectiveness (Chen et al 2020a , b ; Taxer et al 2019 ). Similar research on principal emotions is ongoing (e.g., Chen and Guo 2020 ; James et al 2019 ).…”

Orientación de los significados emocionales de profesoras durante su trabajo en aula

“…El estudio de las emociones de las y los docentes ha concitado de manera persistente el interés de los investigadores desde fines del siglo XX (e.g., Chen et al, 2020;Keller et al, 2014;Saric, 2015;Uitto et al, 2015;Xu, 2018;Zembylas & Schutz, 2016). La complejidad de este objeto de estudio puede observarse en la diversidad de aristas investigativas que desde éste se han desarrollado.…”

School Leaders’ Emotional Experiences and Capabilities: Perspectives, Challenges, and Prospects

“…This situation harms the psychosocial and physiological health of school leaders, reciprocally affecting job performance and satisfaction (De Nobile & McCormick, 2010 ). Therefore, school leaders’ emotions and their emotional capabilities increasingly become one of the key aspects in taking a school forward (Chen & Guo, 2020 ; Chen & Walker, 2021 ; Leithwood et al, 2020 ).…”