Meta-emotion philosophy in teachers from kindergarten to middle school

Abstract

The present study further investigated the role of teachers as emotional socializers by exploring both the theoretical and the empirical applicability of the construct of meta-emotion philosophy in teachers coming from kindergarten to middle-school. Specifically, we first aimed to test the psychometric properties of a specific tool to assess meta-emotion philosophy (i.e., the Crèche Educator Emotional Style Questionnaire - CEESQ, originally developed for early childhood educators). The second aim was to explore whether the associations between the dimensions provided by the CEESQ were in line with the meta-emotion philosophy framework. 815 female teachers (mean teaching experience = 20.08 years, SD = 10.84 years) from kindergarten to middle school took part to the study. The original 5-factor structure of the CEESQ was confirmed (i.e., three factors related to how teachers approach students’ emotions and perceive their self-efficacy as emotional socializers, and two factors related to how they recognize and approach their own emotions in daily life). Moreover, the CEESQ factors showed several significant interrelations, especially considering the correlations between teachers’ self-efficacy as socializers toward students’ emotions and teachers’ perceptions of their own personal emotional competence. Emerged results indicated the usefulness to expand the construct of meta-emotion philosophy from parenting to student-teacher relationship in order to reach a more comprehensive understanding of the role of teachers as emotional socializers; moreover, they suggest the need for including in teachers’ pre-service and ongoing education a specific attention to promote awareness about the strict connection between personal emotional world and emotion-related educational practices adopted toward students.