Feeling and Acting like a Teacher: Reconceptualizing Teachers’ Emotional Labor

Abstract

Background/Context Empirical research indicates that teachers across ages and academic contexts regularly engage in emotional labor, and this emotional labor contributes to their job satisfaction, teaching effectiveness, burnout, and emotional well-being both within and outside the classroom. However, because the initial research on emotional labor was situated in the service industries (e.g., restaurants, call centers, airlines), researchers have suggested that the emotional labor framework as it applies to teaching only provides a partial picture of teachers’ deeper and more complex emotional practice. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study This study aims to determine whether and how teachers’ descriptions of their own emotional practice map onto existing emotional labor constructs (emotional display rules, and deep and surface acting) and how the framework may be adapted to better support teachers’ implementation of emotional labor. Setting Participants worked in five charter schools within the same school district but in different areas of a mid-Atlantic metropolitan city. This district identifies itself as serving 4,000 students from “underserved communities” across 13 locations. Population/Participants/Subjects Full-time K–12 educators (N = 68) who worked across academic subjects (e.g., math, science, language arts) or special subjects (e.g., music, art) participated. Research Design The current study is qualitative; we employed adapted grounded theory. Data Collection and Analysis We conducted individual face-to-face semistructured interviews with participants; audio recordings were transcribed verbatim. We developed a codebook through a collaborative and iterative process, and we achieved high interrater reliability before using Dedoose to code the full corpus of data. Findings/Results There were two key findings: (1) teachers perceived feeling rules in addition to display rules, and (2) teachers described an emotional acting strategy in which they modulated the expressions of their authentic emotions, which we call modulated acting, in addition to surface and deep acting. Conclusions/Recommendations Including teachers’ perceptions of feeling rules and use of modulated acting in emotional labor research has the potential to enhance our understanding of how emotional labor relates to outcomes that are important for both teachers and their students. In addition, we urge teacher educators to include emotional labor in their curricula. Though further research is needed to build a strong literature base on ways in which teachers’ emotional labor may connect to their own and their students’ outcomes, the emotional labor constructs already have the potential to be useful for both preservice and practicing teachers.

Exploring the Challenge of Teachers’ Emotional Labor in Early Childhood Settings

“…How well teachers successfully regulate their own emotions as they guide and facilitate others' emotions can significantly impact the climate and culture of a classroom. According to Horner et al ( 2020 ), unlike other emotional labor jobs, such as those within the service industry where interactions with others can be brief and random, teachers have prolonged and consistent engagements with students and families. Teachers are required to be both subject matter experts and emotional development facilitators in the classroom.…”

“…Teachers are expected to regulate their emotions and respond to students and families in ways that fall within acceptable and professional rules and conduct guidelines. Horner et al ( 2020 ) describe how teachers use the strategy of emotional acting to negotiate positive and negative encounters in the classroom. For example, teachers might engage in surface acting to regulate emotions in response to negative classroom situations such as student outbursts and disruptions, school crisis drills, and conflicts with parents.…”

“…Strategies for addressing emotional well-being not only benefit the teacher but also contribute to a healthy classroom climate. "By carefully attending to various aspects of teachers' emotional practice, we will be better able to support them as they work to foster the academic success and emotional growth of their students" (Horner et al, 2020 , p. 25).…”

High school English-as-a-foreign-language teachers’ emotional labor and job satisfaction: A latent profile analytical approach

“…Empirical research has shown that emotional labor contributes to teachers’ job satisfaction, teaching effectiveness, and psychological well-being ( Wróbel, 2013 ; Yin et al, 2013 ; Yilmaz et al, 2015 ). Thus, researchers have noted that the exploration of teachers’ emotional labor, particularly teachers’ regulatory behaviors, can help deepen researchers’ understanding of the correlation between emotional labor and outcomes, which is important for both teachers and their students ( Horner et al, 2020 ).…”

The unexpected emotional cost of teaching chemistry in a pandemic

“…Emotional labor describes the emotional dimension of service jobs and the implied requirements for people in those jobs (Hochschild, 1983;Dunkel, 1988). In the context of education, multiple authors have studied and recognized a significant emotional component associated with K-12 teaching (Hargreaves, 2001;Hebson et al, 2007;Brown, 2011;Tsang, 2011;Horner et al, 2020). More recent publications have expanded application of this term to college teachers (Auger and Formentin, 2021;Waldbuesser et al, 2021;Berheide et al, 2022).…”