Abstract
AbstractHigh demand for suitably qualified, high‐quality science teachers is undermined by elevated teacher burnout/attrition rates within the early years of teaching. Effective emotion management can alleviate feelings of burnout and is also linked theoretically to sustaining positive social bonds. Scant attention has been directed at the importance of emotion management and social bonds in science education research. This study presents a methodology for studying emotion management and social bonds, delivering novel outcomes that elucidate how these two phenomena are interrelated. Video recordings of classroom interactions and reflective accounts in an early‐career science teacher's ninth grade class were analyzed through a combination of ethnomethodology and interpretive techniques. Situated actions that constitute emotion management at the classroom level impacted the status of bonds between the teacher and one of his students, ultimately leading to a breakdown in their relationship. Results of the study detail how social actions of numerous students and the teacher led to the co‐construction of emotion management and how this impacted social bonds. Theoretical and practical insights about the co‐constructed nature of emotion management and social bonds present novel perspectives that can help to avoid pathologizing the actions of individual students and teachers for sustaining positive social bonds. Implications for science teaching and teacher education are offered. Study outcomes extend previous perspectives on emotion management in science education, which treat emotion management as an individual cognitive phenomenon.
Highlights
Quote 1: Oh, man, Fergal [student pseudonym] ticks me off sometimes. (Teacher comment, postlesson conversation) Quote 2: I asked my anger to be patient...It was emotionally exhaustive but I didn't lose my temper so I was happy with the result. (Teacher reflective writing, 2 weeks after quote 1)As these two quotes from the early-career science teacher, Mr Hurley, at the center of this study reveal, emotional interactions and the need to manage them are part of science teachers' work
Four different forms of emotion management are evident from the situated practices analyzed in this early-career science teacher's class: (1) class-level emotion management as changes to emotional climate, (2) motivation/growth approach as an attempt to manage individual/ whole-class anxiety, (3) dissecting Fergal, and (4) Mr Hurley's self-reported management of anger and frustration
More nuanced understandings of emotion management have been identified in forms (1)–(3), which move beyond individual cognitive explanations found in theories (Gross, 2014) and perspectives on emotion management (Hochschild, 1983)
Summary
Quote 1: Oh, man, Fergal [student pseudonym] ticks me off sometimes. (Teacher comment, postlesson conversation) Quote 2: I asked my anger to be patient...It was emotionally exhaustive but I didn't lose my temper so I was happy with the result. (Teacher reflective writing, 2 weeks after quote 1). Emotion/social bond diaries are onepage double-sided documents created for this study in which teachers and students report classroom experiences at the end of each observed lesson. A completed analysis may take the following form: The social action throwing-head-back-and-laughing following a student-sarcastic-remark may collectively achieve a [joke] This may have the effect of achieving what students or teachers report in reflections as [emotion management] that converts a somber classroom emotional climate into a euphoric one. Mr Hurley's gloss, [motivational/growth], in the reflective writing is substantiated by his practices where he begins the verbal action of reappraisal-of-the-results His speech actions during this time imply a shift away from self-appraisals (e.g., “this result means I am bad at science”), toward a view that this is one result that stands alone and is not indicative of the students' overall ability, typical achievement (i.e., A grades), or identity as learners.
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