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.
Highlights
It has been a longstanding consensus that teaching is a high-risk profession (Capone and Petrillo, 2018; Taxer et al, 2019). Näring et al (2011) claimed that “the work of teachers is being evaluated in more and more detail and this has led to an increase in the emotional demands of teaching” (p. 12)
As it is argued that teaching in primary schools is more emotionally intensive than other educational levels (Hargreaves, 2000; Stephanou and Oikonomou, 2018), the current study has chosen to focus on the emotional trajectory of two excellent primary teachers in China across three teacher career stages, which would be explained in the result and discussion sections in detail
The result section provides a holistic understanding of Alice’s and Frank’s emotional trajectory, respectively, with regard to their experienced emotions and emotional labor strategies adopted across three career stages
Summary
It has been a longstanding consensus that teaching is a high-risk profession (Capone and Petrillo, 2018; Taxer et al, 2019). Näring et al (2011) claimed that “the work of teachers is being evaluated in more and more detail and this has led to an increase in the emotional demands of teaching” (p. 12). If we could understand the trajectory of excellent teachers’ emotional experiences, it might provide helpful insights to other teachers to better manage their emotions, serve as a role model for their students, and achieve increased well-being and teaching effectiveness. Some studies suggest that there are no gendered differences in how teachers manage emotions (Timms et al, 2007), while a recent review (Olson et al, 2019) revealed that female teachers use deep acting strategies, though experiencing more unpleasant emotions. As it is argued that teaching in primary schools is more emotionally intensive than other educational levels (Hargreaves, 2000; Stephanou and Oikonomou, 2018), the current study has chosen to focus on the emotional trajectory of two excellent primary teachers in China across three teacher career stages (e.g., early-, mid-, and latecareer stages by Huberman, 1993), which would be explained in the result and discussion sections in detail. Are there any differences regarding emotions experienced and emotional labor strategies adopted at different career stages?
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