Early childhood teachers’ emotional labor: a cross-cultural qualitative study in China and Norway

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis qualitative study aims to understand the emotional labor of early childhood teachers between China and Norway in the perspective of cultural comparison. Altogether six teachers from China and Norway took part in this study and completed the interview and observation. First, both the early childhood teachers from China and Norway believed that they must pay emotional labor, and Norwegian early childhood teachers stressed the professionalism of emotional labor more strongly. Second, all of the early childhood teachers experienced positive and negative emotions, but the context of emotional labor reported by Chinese early childhood teachers was more complex compared with their Norwegian counterparts. Third, the surface acting and deep acting were adopted by the early childhood teachers when regulating the emotions, and there were differences between China and Norway. Lastly, early childhood teachers’ individual background, social status and early childhood practice environment were taken into consideration when discussing the differences.