Teachers’ Work and Emotions

Being a teacher is often thought of as an emotionally fulfilling job, with many positive experiences in watching students grow and mature. However, as Tsang’s research shows, there are plenty of negative emotional experiences in this line of work as well. Given the recent attention towards mental health and well-being, this book addresses these negative experiences and provides recommendations for dealing with them.

Focusing on teachers in Hong Kong, Tsang investigates the social mechanisms that arouse such negative emotional experiences, otherwise known as caam2. He asserts that these feelings are socially constructed, and it is only by understanding the causes and feelings can we begin to improve teachers’ emotional well-being and teaching quality. Using a theoretical framework based on a critical review and synthesis of five existing perspectives, including labor process perspective, school administration perspective, emotional labor perspective, social interaction perspective, and teacher identity perspective, Tsang does precisely that, exploring the social process of these emotional experiences and the interplay between teacher agency and social structure. These findings go a long way in ameliorating teacher experiences all over the world.