Keeping the cool. Emotions and emotional labour in primary school teaching

Abstract

Interest in the problem of teacher burnout has grown over the past decade. Heavy workload is commonly identified as a major factor in teacher burnout. In political debates and media discourses, emphasis has been placed on an achievement-based school system. Student achievement is measured by standardized tests while teachers are supposed to demonstrate f lexibility in their teaching and meet individual educational needs. When achievement scores are not satisfactory, teachers often get blamed in the unfair public discourse. These circumstances raise questions about emotions and emotional labour among teachers who teach diverse student groups. This article focuses on teacher emotion and emotional labor and identifies which factors shape their experiences by drawing on qualitative research carried out among 14 primary school teachers. In this article we adopt Sara Ahmed’s (2010, 2014) affect theory and her ideas relating to affective economies and Arlie Hochschild’s (1983) theory on emotional labor. The teachers are supposed to share a passion for their job and meet the demand of demonstrating positive rather than negative emotions in their classrooms. This passion or love is what binds them together and forms their identity as “good teachers”, separating them from “bad teachers”. The neoliberal happiness script provides teachers with limited space to express other and negative emotions. However, the findings suggest that teacher emotions are diverse, complex, ever changing and shaped by the f luctuating and f luid school year. This working environment has created high demand for emotional labor. Teachers need to control their emotions in daily interactions with students, parents, and school administrators for the purpose of creating a positive atmosphere for learning. Also, they need to control their feelings and suppress emotions when they have to deal with difficult interactions in the workplace, settle disagreements in the classroom or face negative public discourse. In the research, the teachers described how they lacked administrative support where administrators demonstrated scant interest and understanding of teacher workload and circumstances. They did not provide advice or support when teachers were dealing with difficulties in their classroom due to class-size, class-organization, and class planning. Many teachers had difficulties meeting every student’s educational needs in big classes with limited support. Also, they felt too much time was spent in meetings and working on administrative petprojects instead of using their working hours to plan their lessons. Administrators seem to be exploiting teachers’ passion for their job and assume that they will plan their teaching at home after work if they must. Administrative support is a capital in the affective economies; it groups teachers together and facilitates unity among teachers and other staff, having the potential of creating a positive atmosphere within the schools. Furthermore, administrative support can decrease the negative effects of emotional labour in teaching. The findings also show how teacher-parent collaboration is often time consuming and difficult. While successful teachers claimed this was rewarding; they, at the same time, identified difficult collaboration or lack of collaboration as one of the factors which decreased their passion for teaching. Many parents are demanding and expect teachers to carry out a large variety of tasks unrelated to teaching and expect prompt responses from teachers after working hours or even at night. Administrators need to communicate clearly to parents what they can expect teachers to do and when. Negative public discourse regarding schools and teachers has become ingrained in Icelandic society. The media expend more effort blaming teachers instead of reporting on positive issues and seldom ask teachers to comment on current educational debates. Many teachers felt it was impossible to meet the educational needs of each student and experienced much shame and guilt. Too many negative emotions stick to the teacher’s role and too much emotional labor can decrease teachers’ passion for their job. It is, therefore, important to study teacher emotion and the emotional labor of teaching to gather information as to what is needed to create a better atmosphere and working conditions for all.