Emotions as Both a Tool and a Liability: A Phenomenology of Urban Charter School Teachers’ Emotions

Abstract

Teachers’ emotional experiences at work have important implications for both teachers and students, particularly during challenging behavioral interactions. Understanding how teachers conceptualize the role of their workplace emotions can help school leaders and researchers develop policies and interventions to support teachers in navigating the emotional dimensions of their roles. In this phenomenological study, we examined how nine teachers working at two urban charter schools made sense of the role of their emotions in their work. We found that teachers conceptualized their emotions as both a tool and a liability for themselves and their students. We provide implications for charter school leaders working to improve teacher-student interactions and promote equitable practices in their schools, and for researchers aiming to understand the affective aspects of teachers’ work.

Introduction

An emerging body of research points to the importance of teachers’ emotions in shaping the nature and quality of their interactions with students (Frenzel, 2021). Because teacher-student interactions impact students’ academic success (Allen et al., 2013; Cadima et al., 2010) and their social-emotional development (Luckner & Pianta, 2011; Poulou, 2017), both teachers’ internal emotional appraisals and attributions, and their external emotional expressions have important consequences during teacher-student interactions. The external emotions that teachers express during interactions with students, via facial expressions, body language, or verbal communication, can directly influence students’ emotional states in the classroom (Becker et al., 2014; Frenzel et al., 2009; Keller & Becker, 2018). At the same time, teachers’ internal emotional attributions, e.g. their causal appraisals of perceived stimuli, can influence their judgment and decision-making during interactions (Angie et al., 2011). Teachers’ implicit biases for and against students based on their race, disability identification status, and other identities often influence their emotional attributions during interactions (Arcia et al., 2000; Nelson 2018; Reed, 2020; Westling, 2010). These attributions regarding the nature of students’ behavior may impact how teachers feel about the student (Gaier, 2015; Weiner, 2010), and, in turn, inform how they respond to students (Andreou & Rapti, 2010; Poulou & Norwich, 2002; Wang & Hall, 2018).

Teachers’ emotional appraisals and attributions hold particularly strong consequences during teacher-student interactions regarding challenging behavior (Hart & DiPierna, 2017; Lucas et al., 2009). When teachers attribute a challenging behavior to something beyond the student’s control, teachers may feel more sympathetic and engage in more supportive responses; conversely, teachers are more likely to feel frustrated, and thereby less likely to respond from an empathetic standpoint, when they believe a student can control the behavior (Wang & Hall, 2018). Teachers’ emotions thereby inform the extent to which they perceive behaviors as intentionally defiant or disrespectful, and the extent to which their responses to students are punitive or restorative.

Most student suspensions occur because of subjectively defined offenses, such as perceived disrespect (Girvan et al., 2017; Department of Education and Secondary Education 2020a). Thus, teachers’ emotions play an important role in the persistence of exclusionary discipline practices in many schools today (e.g., Gregory et al., 2014; Ritter & Anderson, 2018; Sullivan et al., 2014). Because teachers are socialized within the cultural environments of their school institutions, organizational norms shape their expectations regarding student interactions and the types of emotions they believe they should be experiencing and expressing during interactions with students (Atiles et al., 2017; Stark & Bettini, 2021). For example, many schools’ “zero tolerance” policies criminalize behaviors that do not align with the forms of communication and emotional expression considered standard by white staff and/or administrators (Hirschfield, 2008; Osher et al., 2012). Thus, to support positive teacher-student interactions, particularly during challenging behavior, it is crucial to critically examine these underlying emotional norms, and teachers’ internal and external emotional experiences.

Understanding teachers’ emotional experiences during challenging behaviors should be of particularly urgent concern for charter school leaders: charter schools’ rates of suspension are, on average, 16% higher than rates at public non-charter schools (Losen et al., 2016). Although charter schools are sometimes positioned as leaders in innovation (Gawlik, 2016), and, by nature of their unique accountability structures, charged with the opportunity to engage in creative solutions to educational problems (Pandit et al., 2016), charters often reproduce problematic practices and policies instead (Baker, 2016; Sondel et al., 2019). Data on charter schools’ school suspension rates raises questions regarding the question of why “innovation'' is desired in the first place, and who is best equipped to lead this charge. Often, the creation of a charter school results in the displacement of educators from the same culture and community as the school’s students, by racial and economic outsiders (Buras, 2011; Lipman, 2009). Within this process, there is not only a reorganization and redistribution of the school’s physical space, but its emotional space as well (Buras, 2011). Just as the physical structures of classrooms, hallways, and entrances shape equity and access, so also do the emotional structures within these spaces. Thus, if we aim to support positive outcomes for teachers and students within charter schools, we must critically examine charter schools’ emotional spaces.

Our goal in this paper is neither to absolve or indict charter schools categorically; there is both diversity within this category of schools, and there is already a wealth of rich research on the political implications of the charter movement. However, in recognition of the widespread current operation of charters, our aim in this paper is to conduct an exploratory examination of how a sample of urban charter teachers makes sense of the role that their own emotions play in the culture, policies, and practices enacted within their schools. In doing so, we aim to understand teachers’ perceptions of the role of emotion within these contexts. To our knowledge, researchers have not directly asked urban charter teachers to engage in reflection regarding the overall place of emotion in their work. To meet this gap in the literature, we conducted a phenomenological thematic analysis of nine urban charter teachers’ emotional experiences. Our research question was: How do teachers in urban charter schools conceptualize the role of their own emotions in their work?

Theoretical Framework: Sensemaking Theory

In this study, we draw on sensemaking theory to demonstrate the importance of research regarding teachers’ perceptions of the affective dimensions of their work. Originating in the work of organizational psychologists, sensemaking theory asserts that the ways in which individuals within organizations make sense of their workplace experiences have important implications for how policy is enacted within the organization (Weick et al., 2005). In previous education research, sensemaking theory has been used to demonstrate how the implementation of school or district wide policies, such as reading policies (Coburn, 2001, 2005) or disciplinary practices (Dhaliwal et al., 2021; Russell & Crocker, 2016), is informed by teachers’ interpretation of policy change, and their ability to incorporate it into existing schemas regarding their professional roles and responsibilities. Such research suggests that when policies threaten teachers’ preconceived notions of their professional identities, they are not likely to be effectively implemented. For example, in a study of teachers’ sensemaking regarding disciplinary reform, Russell and Crocker (2016) explain,

[Restorative justice] in schools cannot be mandated as a policy change or implemented through training in practices isolated from changes in organisational rules and formative context….[doing so] will disrupt the sensemaking process, [and] unsettle teachers' sense of themselves, resulting in no real change (p. 210).

We posit that an important aspect of teachers’ “sense of themselves” is the role of emotion in their work. Understanding teachers' sensemaking about their emotional experiences at work will offer important insight into the potential for restorative justice policies to be implemented. Given the importance of positive student–teacher interactions for both students and teachers, we assert that for interactions to be positive and restorative, policy initiatives must be grounded in a deep understanding of how teachers conceptualize the role of their own emotional experiences during teacher-student interactions. In this study, we explore how nine teachers in urban charter schools make sense of the role of emotions in their professional work.

Method

Participants and Context

After obtaining IRB approval for this study, we used state administrative data to identify charter schools with relatively high rates of exclusionary discipline. After reviewing administrative data, we requested permission from administrators in seven charter schools to recruit teacher participants during the summer and fall of 2021. We received research approval from administrators in three of these schools. Of the administrators who declined participation, several stated that while they supported the project conceptually, they felt the need to protect teachers from additional responsibilities due to the added stressors of the COVID-19 pandemic. We assured participating administrators that teacher participation was completely voluntary and confidential.

In schools with administrator approval, teachers were invited to participate in this study through an all-staff email and a follow-up email, sent approximately one month later. Teachers from two of the schools responded to our research invitation. Both schools’ student population was predominantly students of color and both schools were located within the same metropolis area. The first school was part of a larger charter network, established in 1995, and had approximately 350 students in grades 9–12; the second school was a stand-alone charter school, established in 2005, serving approximately 360 students in grades 6–12. Overall, we obtained a final sample of 9 middle and high school teachers, which fits well within recommendations for phenomenological research (Creswell, 2018; Polkinghorne, 1989). Table 1 exhibits our participants’ demographics. Mirroring the teaching staff in many American schools, our sample was predominantly composed of white female teachers.

Table 1.

Participants

Pseudonym	Content Area	Years of Experience	Gender Identity	Racial Identity
Brittany	High school special education	1	Female	White
Heidi	High school science	1	Female	White
Luke	High school ELA	1	Male	White
Lydia	High school math	1	Female	White
Michael	Middle school humanities	1	Male	White
Rebecca	High school ESL	4	Female	White
Sharon	High school history	5	Female	African American
Mikey	Middle school special education	5	Female	White
Melinda	Middle & high school reading specialist	10	Female	White

Data Collection

After providing informed consent, teachers who expressed interest in the study participated in a semi-structured interview conducted on Zoom; interviews lasted between 45 and 60 min. During the interview, we first sought to understand which emotions were most salient in each teachers’ professional experience broadly—not just those experienced during challenging student behavior. In the tradition of phenomenological research, our interview protocol was designed to help teachers consciously attend to their experiences and explore the meaning of them (Creswell, 2018), in this case, their experiences during emotionally-salient interactions with students. In phenomenology, the study of a phenomenon consists both of what is experienced and how it is experienced (Moustakas, 1994). As such, we were interested not only in the valence and intensity of teachers’ emotions, but also in how they interpreted them, including how they made sense of the contexts and circumstances associated with particular emotions. In our interview with each teacher, we asked a series of open-ended questions that addressed our overarching research question. Our full interview protocol is provided in Appendix A. Each interview was transcribed via Zoom, and each transcription was verified by a member of the research team. Each teacher who participated received a $25 gift card.

Data Analysis

In the tradition of educational phenomenology, we aimed to glean both an understanding of what was experienced and the circumstances under which it was experienced (Creswell, 2018). To do so, we used iterative rounds of coding and thematic analysis to understand our data. Throughout the analytical process, we approached the data from a social constructivist lens, drawing on the work of previous scholars of emotions in education, such as Zembylas (2007) and Boler (2004), who posit that norms regarding what constitutes professional emotional regulation, display, and experience are socially constructed within school organizations.

We used both deductive and inductive coding during our analysis. To help orient ourselves to the data, we completed an initial round of structural coding to organize and categorize the data (Saldaña, 2013). During this round of coding, we used deductive codes to identify two types of excerpts relevant for phenomenological analyses: textual and structural excerpts. Textual excerpts would inform our description of teachers’ experiences of emotions during interactions (e.g. the phenomena itself); structural excerpts would inform our understanding of “the conditions, situations, or context in which they experienced the phenomenon” (Creswell, 2007, p. 254). To this end, we first used the codes of emotional interaction and general emotion to bucket excerpts informing the textual description of the phenomenon; that is, excerpts in which teachers described the role of their emotional experiences in their work. Emotion has been defined in many ways, and a precise scientific definition remains up for dispute (Dixon, 2012; Izard, 2010). In this study, we aimed to code very broadly; we included anything that the participants described as a feeling, affective experience, or physiological response to a stimulus in their environments in our coding of “emotion.”

Then, we used the codes of teacher identity and school context to bucket excerpts informing our structural description of the phenomenon (i.e., excerpts regarding the factors which shape how teachers’ experience the role of their emotions). These two overall deductive codes were created based on existing literature demonstrating how aspects of teachers’ identities and aspects of workplace conditions and culture can both influence emotional experiences.

Using the structural codes, we created summaries for each participant to reflect what they shared about their own identities and how they characterized the conditions in which they worked. Once familiarized with the participants’ contexts, we then returned to the transcripts to conduct open, inductive coding of their emotional experiences (Saldaña, 2013). We considered the types of emotion(s) teachers described, the types of professional interaction or activity within which the emotion was experienced, and the teachers’ perceptions regarding how specific emotions impacted that interaction or activity. In doing so, we sought to understand the essence of the emotional experience (Creswell, 2007).

Throughout this process, we recognized that teachers described a wide range of emotions as serving both positive and negative roles during student interactions. We noticed four themes regarding the role of teachers’ emotions during interactions with students: emotions serving a positive role for teachers, positive role for students, negative role for teachers, and negative role for students. Across participants, we found that various aspects of their identities, as well as their perceptions of workplace conditions, affected each of these four potential roles of emotions. As the themes emerged, we considered the boundaries, coherence, and meaningfulness of each potential theme (Braun & Clarke, 2012). We reviewed each transcript individually and documented additional quotes relevant to each theme. Finally, we built a figure to visualize our findings.

During all stages of the data analysis, we took steps to increase credibility and trustworthiness. For example, an important aspect of phenomenology is epoche, or the suspension of judgment. The intention of epoche is to arrive at the essence of participants’ experience, rather than our own experiences. To do so, we actively sought not to judge teachers’ attributions for their emotions during student interactions or interrupt their telling of stories to “correct” their terminology, but to understand why and how they came to those attributions. We considered how our own positionalities influenced our analysis, discussing both the ways in which we aimed to bracket (Girogi, 2009; Moustakas, 1994) our own experiences during analysis, as well as the ways in which our own personal and professional identities could support our work (Esteban-Guitart & Moll, 2014). The first author is a white female who was previously a special education teacher in public and charter schools in a large Midwestern city, and in several public institutions in the Northeast; she is now employed as a researcher at a large university. The second author is a Black, female school psychologist currently working in a large, Southeastern school district and pursuing a doctorate in special education. As we engaged with the data, we met on a regular basis to share our experiences with the data and what we were uncovering within the data throughout the coding process. Given the topic of the study, we discussed the emotions we experienced as we encountered the data, what was potentially missing from the data, and how our own personal and professional identities might influence our analysis. Finally, to support the credibility of our findings, we use thick descriptions of our participants and frequent, direct quotations. In the following section, we provide a description of our participants’ phenomenologies of the role of emotions in their work; we aim to refrain from our own commentary or analysis to report the participants’ own experiences. We then situate these phenomenologies within the broader literature on charter schools, emotions, and teacher- student interactions in our discussion.

Findings

We found that all nine teachers conceptualized their own emotions as highly salient to their work, and as influential in their responses during interactions with students. Although teachers idealized their emotions as a professional tool during student interactions, they recognized that sometimes their emotions functioned as a professional liability. Thus, as shown in Fig. 1, teachers conceptualized their emotions during student interactions as falling on a continuum ranging from liability to tool. In addition, we found that teachers experienced both their own identities and the characteristics of their workplaces as important factors in determining whether their emotions functioned as a liability or a tool during specific teacher-student interactions.

Fig. 1.

Conceptualizing the Role of Teachers’ Emotions During Teacher-Student Interactions

Conceptualizing Emotions as a Professional Tool

Across the sample, teachers conceptualized the role of their emotions during teacher-student interactions as potentially serving as a professional tool that they could actively and strategically use to support both their students’ success as well as their own. In regard to student success, teachers intentionally used their emotions during interactions with students to engage students in instruction, to provide appropriate academic support, and to build relationships. With regard to their own success, teachers experienced the role of their emotions during student interactions as a motivator, a catalyst for professional innovation, and a source of data that reinforced their self-efficacy as an educator.

Emotions as a Tool to Support Students

First, teachers used emotional displays strategically during interactions with students to support students’ engagement with academic content and to motivate them to persist in learning activities. For example, Melinda, a special education teacher, described using her own emotions to challenge a student and encourage him to succeed. She explained,

I have the power to change the way that they are seeing themselves in this context…[by] getting very excited, ‘YES!’…or giving a big ‘snaps!’...you keep going, building that positive momentum for them….both of us are super excited and super proud and impressed…we got through this challenge, and it was together.

Like Melinda, other teachers described being able to use their natural emotions as a tool. Heidi, a first-year science teacher, stated, “I get really excited about things, and I hope that the students can sense that, or at least…my excitement about what I’m teaching gets me through it, hoping that at least one student’s going to like it.” In fact, sometimes teachers’ naturally experienced negative emotions even served as a tool. For example, Lydia, a first-year math teacher, described how her emotions were a useful source of data regarding the gravity of a situation. She explained how, when a student with a disability in her classroom was having difficulty self-regulating, she immediately called for support rather than trying to de-escalate him on her own, since she didn’t have sufficient training regarding his disability category. She noted, “I was actually really happy with how it went….we got into a more calm place… I think my fear might have positively affected my response because I knew how serious it was.” Lydia believed her decision allowed for the student to be effectively supported and prevented a situation in which she may have responded ineffectively due to her lack of training.

Other times, however, teachers strategically expressed specific types of emotions that they knew would benefit the student(s) during the interaction, even if they didn’t naturally feel those emotions inside. For example, Luke, a first year ELA teacher, explained, “[On some days,] you're really tired, but you're gonna pretend to be motivated and excited about this grammar.” Michael, a first-year humanities teacher, explained, “[The students are] just endlessly entertaining and they just do goofy things all the time…so I really try and hold onto [that joy] and try and spread [it back] to them as well, and make school somewhere they're excited to be my classroom, where they're excited to step into.” In these cases, teachers generated emotions they believed would serve students. Teachers also noted that that one specific type of feeling, empathy, functioned as a tool during their interactions with students–whether they experienced it naturally or after emotional re-appraisal. Mikey, in her fifth year of teaching special education, explained,

Emotions work for me... when I lead with empathy and when I do lead with inquiry…. this kid is dealing with something, let me pause, let me consider what they're going through, let me consider the fact that they would not be acting this way if they had a better way of communicating… they wouldn't be acting this way if they were able to help it…how can I help?

Similarly, Brittany, a first-year special educator, recalled a time when her own empathy served as a tool to help her de-escalate two students. She explained,

They're swearing up and up and down a tree [but] instead of me saying, Hey, watch your language, I was like, all right, let me, you know, let me take it back, let me look at them as humans. My empathy definitely took over and I think it was for the better of everyone in the situation… they were able to return to the next class after the bell.

Emotions as a Tool to Support Teachers

A second way in which teachers conceptualized the role of their own emotions during student interactions was as a tool for their own benefit; that is, they experienced their emotions as reinforcing their own professional success. Experiencing positive emotions during student interactions served as an indicator of their professional competencies, or as a “reward” for their investment. For example, Mikey described seeking out emotional rewards throughout the day, explaining,

I feel like: [I’m] in a video game where you're jumping to get a star…whenever there's an interaction, I hit that star… you see the goal and you're kind of trying to tap it… it's this rising up feeling... joy is the emotion I feel again: I'm like ooh, like I feel this burst of strong emotions, like serotonin.

Experiencing positive emotions during student interactions motivated teachers to continue to invest in their work. For example, Lydia stated,

Feeling I'm making a difference…feeling fulfilled in my job, really helps me to get through those long days you know? It helps me kind of reset at the beginning of each day and try to take each new day as it comes. Because I know that if I do that, I'll have those positive emotions of feeling fulfilled and feeling validated in my hard work.

Similarly, Brittany stated, “It's just so rewarding for me to help these kids, to be an advocate for them…to create relationships with those who might not have advocacy at home.” Teachers noted that compared to other professionals, these emotional rewards were particularly important in their role as educators. Heidi explained, “On days where you feel like you have nothing left to give, it's nice to have a purpose… these kids are depending on me, rather than… some other job, where you might just say I’m going to call out.” Like Heidi, many teachers viewed emotions as positive reinforcement for their work. Across the sample, teachers conceptualized the role of their emotions as potentially facilitating both their own success, as well as that of their students. However, despite the potential for emotions to benefit teacher-student interactions, teachers also recognized that their emotions sometimes functioned as a professional liability during student interactions, compromising the success of their students and themselves.

Conceptualizing Emotions as a Professional Liability

Teachers described how their emotions, when functioning as a liability, had the potential to harm relationships with students, detract from the quality of students’ learning opportunities, and lead to their own burnout from the profession.

Teachers’ Emotions as a Liability for Students

Teachers described how the emotions they experienced during student interactions sometimes compromised the quality of the learning opportunities to which students were exposed. For example, Heidi described having to pause a lesson and step outside the classroom to compose herself because she felt like she was about to cry. Luke described how his emotions during interactions make him more passive and less engaged with students. He explained,

I guess [my negative emotions] will manifest in…more of a checking out…I've never really blown up on a student or anything… I think sometimes my own emotions with this kind of lead me to just being like, I don't want to deal with this right now, I don't want to have to go talk to the student about something so yeah sometimes I'll be a little bit more withdrawn than I would like to be.

Several teachers noted how feeling defensive, embarrassed, or vulnerable during student interactions made it difficult for them to understand the underlying causes of student behavior. For example, Michael recalled an interaction in which his feelings of frustration with a student’s lack of progress could have prevented him from identifying new ways to explain the content to her. He explained, “I’m getting very frustrated, but getting frustrated is not going to help the situation, I have to present [as] having patience.” Teachers described having to actively put their emotions aside, or enact different emotions, in order to appropriately interact with students. For example, Rebecca, an ESL teacher with four years of experience, explained,

You do have fear [of some students], so you kind of want to just be friendly and get rid of those fears that you may have. But I think part of our work, it is hard and you have to be brave with emotions and… it's kind of about meeting each other halfway.

Another emotion that often functioned as a liability during interactions was anxiety, particularly anxiety regarding the ability to manage the classroom. This sometimes resulted in harm during teacher-student interactions: for example, two teachers described witnessing teachers’ fears that they had lost control of their classrooms manifest in racially-biased ways. Mikey explained,

There was a lot of conflict…at that school between white teachers and students of color because of…something as basic as how am I expressing my emotions, and what's an appropriate way of expressing my emotions versus for me versus an appropriate way for you….but one [form] of it is this [perceived] need to control the students… these power dynamics.

She explained that the shift to restorative justice practices is sometimes challenging for teachers because, “We’re used to this power dynamic where you see the sense that we need to be in control and I think that's why [with the shift to] restorative practice, there is so much skepticism.”

Some teachers recognized that their emotions were more likely to be a liability later in the school year when their emotional resources were more drained. Brittany explained, “I think at the beginning of the year, I was a lot better at managing those frustrations. And then now I feel like I've noticed that I've become more [of a] short fuse.” Similarly, Melinda explained, “I'm still in the part of the year where I have enough energy to flip the narrative,” recognizing that later in the school year she often struggled more.

Teachers’ Emotions as a Liability for Themselves

In addition to potentially compromising student relationships and learning during interactions, teachers recognized that the emotions they experienced during interactions sometimes harmed themselves as well. In particular, when teachers experienced negative emotions during student interactions, this often resulted in subsequent negative emotions about their work, and reduced their confidence, self-efficacy, and motivation. For example, Michael noticed that his confidence dropped when he felt frustrated about an interaction. He explained,

There are definitely feelings of insecurity; Wow I was so bad today…I might get another shot to teach more years, but the kids I'm teaching only to do sixth grade once…it really makes me think about [whether] I'm the best person to be in the spot.

Similarly, Lydia recalled a time when,

I did not have control over the class …[afterwards,] I felt pretty embarrassed, I think, because of all these messages we've been taught and then as a first year teacher…I felt kind of inadequate…I felt vulnerable….in moments where I've been really frustrated and shown it in my class, I've thought afterwards that I was a little embarrassed about that or, I'm glad that my principal wasn't there for that moment!

Brittany also described feeling embarrassed about how her emotions manifested during an interaction with a student: “Those frustrations, especially the feeling of disrespect, completely took over me. I raised my voice and I was honestly embarrassed afterwards.”

Several teachers shared another way in which their emotions sometimes functioned as a liability for them: because the emotional rewards of positive teacher-student interactions were so compelling and motivating, they struggled to have boundaries about what they were willing to emotionally invest in the job. For example, Rebecca felt that because her job was so emotional and her energy was depleted after work, it became her “whole life.” Since the emotions teachers experienced related to their work led them to work around the clock, many participants described a lack of investment in the self-care and relaxation needed to sustain themselves in the career. For example, Brittany described having to choose between therapy sessions for herself or lesson planning. She viewed self-care as a heavy ethical decision, noting the

[It’s a] moral [question] of: do I do something for myself, but then [making sure] it doesn't jeopardize what I'm able to do for the kids. And there's that balance between, while I can't save the kids, I'm here to give them resources and put them through the right path in life and teach them.

Sharon, who had been teaching for four years, noted how she had to learn to take care of herself after the emotions of the job during the first few years resulted in her getting to an unhealthy point,

My biggest mistake was thinking my job would be my fulfillment…This job is not your sense of life, your job is not that. You are here to serve people, but these people don't make you who you are.

Contextual Influences: Teacher Identity within Workplace Conditions

As described above, teachers conceptualized the role of their emotions during interactions with students as falling on a continuum, ranging from their emotions functioning as a tool to their emotions functioning as a liability. In explaining where on this continuum their emotions fell during a specific interaction, the contextual influences associated with teachers’ own identities and their workplace conditions became evident within our data.

First, teachers recognized how their identities influenced the role that their emotions served during specific interactions. Many of the teachers described how their identities as learners, (i.e., identities related to their own educational experiences as students), shaped the role of their emotions during interactions. They noted that both similarities and differences between their own learner identities and their students’ learner identities shaped the function of emotions during the interaction. For example, Mikey explained how her identity supported the role of her emotions as a tool,

Part of my life history and why I specialized in [special education] in the first place is because …of my past as a learner… which then gives me my own perspective…Students with disabilities struggle emotionally. There's always going to be that emotional piece, you're not able to show a bit of your vulnerability and be like yeah, I get frustrated too.

Sharon recognized how her own experience of ADHD as a learner helped her to be a more patient and creative problem solver during interactions in which her students exhibited behaviors and emotions associated with ADHD. She explained,

The impulsive speech one is really hard, because I have impulsive speech issues, so I try really hard to use the impulsive speech moments to keep the class moving forward and instead of it being a moment of, be quiet. Sometimes, it has to be but, for the most part, I try to be like, Okay that's a good point, let's keep going with that, instead of making someone ashamed for calling out.

Luke described how his own experiences with anxiety and depression make him especially empathetic toward students whose learning experiences were impacted by mental health challenges. He explained,

I was the kid who was hanging out in my English teacher’s classroom during lunch…being sad. So I feel like there are some kids…who have issues with anxiety and they will end up to talking to me and you know, [I] tell them about how I've also had issues with anxiety and depression personally… that helps me, I think kind of both to know a little bit of what they're going through and kind of relate to them.

Other teachers recognized that differences between their students’ learner identities and their own learning identity had the potential to positively or negatively shape the role their emotions played during interactions. For example, some teachers mentioned how the expectations that had been set for them as a learner sometimes impacted the emotions they experienced during interactions with their students. Michael explained, “I went to private schools growing up, so there were just not as many kids with learning disabilities, and it was just a culture of being high achieving.” He described being aware of the ways that his natural emotions about what it meant to be “high achieving” could function as a liability, and he was actively engaging in efforts to be “more understanding, more patient of… kids who really struggle because of the learning disabilities they have, not because of a lack of motivation.” Similarly, Rebecca described how part of her learner identity had included the assumption from a young age that she would go to college; this caused her to experience disappointment during interactions with students who didn’t want to go to college. She recognized that this disappointment could function as a liability for her students, negatively impacting her relationships and rapport with students.

Another aspect of teachers’ identities that shaped the function of their emotions was their racial identity. Several of the white participants described their whiteness as an emotional liability during interactions with students. For example, Heidi described how her students repeatedly called her racist when she would tell them to go back to their seats and start working on an assignment. She noted that the first time this happened she had felt “disarmed.” However, when it continued to happen, she learned to pause, re-appraise her initial emotions, and conclude that although students’ comments were directed at her, they were often grappling with racial injustices within the broader educational system, of which her classroom was just one small piece. Yet, despite this being a common experience, she did not directly acknowledge or explicitly address the systemic roots of these racial dynamics with her students or with her colleagues. She explained, “Sometimes I still get really like, Wow that was super personal attack on me, which hurts, but they’re kids, so I’m mostly trying not to take things personally.” Similarly, Michael recalled a time when a student had called him racist for asking the student to be quiet. He explained how in the moment, he wanted to defend himself, but he decided not to pause the lesson or show emotion. He explained, “Being called racist is…really uncomfortable, you’re like, Oh what did I say?! But I have to respond calm and even-keeled because anything else, I think, would have just resulted in making the situation worse.” Like Heidi, he did not mention any direct attempts to address these racial dynamics with his students or with colleagues. Melinda, another white teacher, noted that when students made race-based comments during interactions, she would feel “an initial shock …a paralyzed sort of…the fight or flight freeze, like more like a freeze mentality of, like I know I need to respond and do something, and I feel like I don't have words or I don't have something to say.” These white teachers experienced their emotions surrounding race, as influenced by their own racial identities, as a potential liability during interactions with students. They noted how such interactions raised a variety of complex emotions, including discomfort, guilt, fear, and frustration. They recognized that such emotions might lead the teacher to try and re-establish their own authority in oppressive ways, or end the interaction preemptively, rather than addressing the causes and complexity of students’ experiences of racism.

Sharon, an African American teacher, described how she had invested significant time and effort in developing and implementing new social studies curriculum that was more inclusive of diverse and critical historical perspectives, informed by both her own experiences and her desire to continue learning about other cultures. Her pride in implementing this curriculum was a key source of motivation to invest in her work and in her students. However, despite this pride and motivation, she experienced an uphill battle against pervasive whiteness in her school. She explained,

It’s just really hard. It just seems, no matter where I go, there's a favorite kind of teacher and that's usually a young, unwed, white, type-A person, who can take on lots of responsibilities and doesn't need any extra support or guidance. That format of choosing a leader or choosing people who have talent, to me, is kind of ableist, to only focus on people who perform in the way that you think is worthy. So, it's added to a lot of imposter syndrome that I'm working through right now.

As shown in this quote, Sharon’s emotional experiences were informed not just by her individual identity, but by the positionality of her identity within the broader context of her schools’ organizational conditions and cultures; in this case, a culture characterized by pervasive whiteness.

Across the sample, all nine teachers described their workplace conditions as increasing the likelihood that their emotions functioned as a liability, not a tool. Many of the teachers described feeling stressed or anxious daily due to not having the time or resources they needed to fulfill their professional responsibilities. Because of the overwhelming demands of their work and the stress they were experiencing, their emotional resources were limited, and they weren’t always able to regulate their emotions consistently during student interactions. When teachers interacted with students, the amount of cognitive and emotional resources they could bring to bear on these interactions was sometimes limited. They recognized that if their emotional resources were drained, interactions with students were less likely to be restorative. For example, Sharon explained,

[When teachers] seem to not have good emotional control…that's indicative of the lack of self-care that they're able to do, or the amount of powerlessness that they feel.

Overall, teachers recounted toxic workplace cultures in which teachers were exhausted, isolated, and had few moments during the day to plan, reflect, or take care of themselves. For example, teachers described how being required to take on responsibilities for which they had not been trained cost them valuable emotional resources. Both Luke and Brittany mentioned being responsible for consistently covering Spanish classes due to teacher absences, even though neither spoke Spanish. Luke noted that teachers were also taking on additional emotional demands because “our school has been really short staffed this year…we haven't had any counselors this whole year.” Heidi explained, “We are the subs, we are everything because we don't have those... you don't even get your planning periods [to] kind of breathe and reset.”

Teachers across the sample experienced their emotions during specific student interactions as informed by a backdrop of stress and overwhelm due to this imbalance between resources and demands in their workplaces.

Teachers also noted that establishing restorative and inclusive practices within their schools was emotionally demanding. Sharon shared how challenging it was to create inclusive systems within the cultural norms and working conditions of her school:

In this culture, our very white Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture, the idea that a child's heard while you're talking is [considered] ridiculous. And so I'm trying to move away from the urge to associate silence with learning. And I didn't come from that kind of background so it's an adjustment for me, I think, to get more comfortable with [the idea] that there might be murmurs, there might be talking…the challenge and the difficult emotion [of this shift] is: how do I handle [situations if] students aren't using the talk/work time properly, how do I address it?

Lydia, a white teacher, described the additional emotional demands of restorative practices:

As a school wide thing, they have moved away from merits, demerits, things like that… to completely restorative justice model, which I think is really great…I can see how it's going to work. I think it can work, but this is a lot on me! It feels like I'm supposed to be the math teacher and the counselor at the same time. I just, I don’t know how to do that.

Although she wanted to engage in restorative justice practices, it was not always easy to do so. Because she did not feel fully equipped by her school to respond to all her students’ needs, her emotional overwhelm could sometimes function as a liability during challenging student interactions.

Discussion

In our investigation of how teachers in urban charter schools conceptualized the role of their emotions while teaching, we found that teachers made sense of the role of their emotions as highly salient and impactful in their interactions with students. From a phenomenological standpoint, we found that the “essence” of teachers’ emotional experiences was neither inherently good nor bad: they made sense of emotions as functioning in both useful and problematic ways in teacher-student interactions. Often, teachers experienced their emotions as a tool: teachers were able to use their emotions to motivate and encourage their students' learning in the classroom, build relationships with students, and reinforce their own commitment to their work. Conversely, teachers recognized that their negative emotions may have harmful or punitive effects on students’ experiences in school, resulting in disengagement or punitive responses to students, reduced self-efficacy, and emotional exhaustion. Furthermore, both teacher identity and workplace conditions shaped how teachers’ emotions functioned within specific interactions.

By employing a phenomenological perspective, we first sought an understanding of how teachers made sense of their own emotional experiences; like any of our experiences, our participants’ experiences were deeply shaped by their contexts, life experiences, and identities. Now, as researchers, we reflect on our participants’ phenomenologies, through the lens of our own life experiences and identities, including our understanding of existing research on the role of emotions, identity, and workplace conditions in the work of teachers. We organize our discussion around three reflective questions.

Which Emotions Actually Function as Tools and Liabilities?

First, we reflect on how to support teachers in recognizing when their emotions are serving or harming their students, and themselves. While we recognize our participants’ understanding that emotions have the power to function as a tool or liability, we notice that many of the participants held assumptions about the nature of certain types of emotions—e.g., that anger is a liability or that empathy is productive. However, research on teachers’ emotions suggests that emotions that teachers in this study characterized as a tool may actually function as a liability, and vice versa. For example, feelings of care or empathy from white teachers about students of color may not serve students or teachers, if rooted in deficit notions of students’ experiences (Matias & Zembylas, 2014); these emotions may lead to reduced inclusion, reduced instructional rigor, or the reinforcement of biases (Ruppar et al., 2018; Neary, 2020). Similarly, the feelings of pride that some white teachers recognize as serving their work may in fact reinforce concepts of white saviorism that are ultimately harmful for their students (Grant, 2019, Matias, 2016). On the other hand, while many teachers recognize that expressing feelings of frustration/anger could function as a liability, such emotions may also serve as a tool when they reorient teachers to their values and moral responsibilities, or motivate them to act against injustices experienced by their students or themselves (Liljestrom et al., 2007).

Teachers in our sample aspired for their emotions to serve as a tool during interactions, and white teachers noted how their own biases and the biases of their colleagues had harmful effects on students. However, they did not always feel comfortable or equipped to address these issues. As researchers, we see this as an urgent call to explicitly support white teachers in recognizing which emotions are actually a tool or a liability, and in regulating their emotional expression accordingly. Instructional leaders need to establish learning opportunities to help white teachers understand and acknowledge the role of their own emotions in reinforcing White privilege within their schools (Matias, 2014). White teachers can deepen their understanding of their position of privilege by engaging in interrogation and examination of how whiteness manifests in their own emotional patterns (Boucher, 2016).

Critical reflection on the role of emotions is particularly urgent for any teacher who choses to work in an urban charter communitys where their identity carries racial, linguistic, or economic privilege; without reflection, assumptions about the nature of emotions may result in harm inflicted on students or communities. And, given the cultural diversity within racial groups, it is crucial for teachers of all racial identities to critically examine how their own racial identity shapes their emotional responses to students, even if they share the same racial identity of their students. Regardless of their racial identity, when teachers become more transparent and proactive in acknowledging how their own identity impacts their emotions, proactive dialogue with their peers can emerge. With an increase in knowledge of, and engagement in, culturally responsive teaching practices and cultural competence, teachers communicate respect and value towards the sociocultural experiences with which students enter the classroom. In this context, teachers can achieve solidarity, which Boucher (2016) defines as allyship with students built through advocacy and connectedness with the students and the community. Rather than avoiding the topic, teachers who are able to critically reflect on the role of their emotions are more likely to allow the types of conversations about race and culture with students, families, and colleagues that promote their own learning and self-efficacy (NCTSN, 2017). These exchanges might take place in structured or unstructured ways such as parent/student–teacher conferences, parent nights, community events, and staff team building activities.

Can Teachers Navigate Emotions Effectively in Unjust and Unsustainable Working Conditions?

This need for critical reflection leads to the second question raised by our analysis: can teachers navigate emotions effectively in unjust and unsustainable working conditions? Jupp and Slattery (2012) describe teachers’ own “professional identifications” as “social and historical processes of self-authorship” (p. 287). That is to say: teachers’ own narratives can be changed through critical self-reflection, and successful charter school teachers engage in reflection on the role of emotions in their work (Boucher, 2016). But while teachers have agency to make ethical choices about how they interact with students, regardless of where they are, there are also system-level constraints that impact teachers’ emotional interactions with students.

First, although norms regarding what emotions are appropriate to express or not appropriate vary culturally (Mesquita & Walker, 2003), teachers’ emotional expression in schools is often reinforced by implicit emotional display rules, e.g. unspoken norms about what emotions are professionally acceptable to display and what emotions are not (Stark & Bettini, 2021). Because teachers are socialized into these norms by observing their peers, usually without explicit training, the ways that teachers’ own identities intersect with the broader cultural norms of the school to shape their perceptions of emotion are often uninterrogated. Thus, if a teacher works in a school organization that only permits emotional expression aligned with emotional norms deriving from whiteness, gaslights or undermines the range of emotions that teachers experience, or ignores the need for teachers’ own emotional development, teachers are more likely to engage in the emotional demands of their work in ways that are not conductive to themselves or their students. It is therefore crucial that school leaders address organization-level emotional norms in their schools, and engage in work to understand which types of emotional displays (or suppressions) serve as a tool or liability within their communities.

A key aspect of such work is acknowledging and reducing the unique emotional responsibilities and demands placed on teachers of color in schools. Previous research has clearly exemplified the wide range of disproportionate emotional responsibilities placed on teachers of color, including expectations that they champion efforts to implement culturally relevant pedagogy appropriately (Borrero et al., 2016), address stereotype threat for students and teachers of color (Milner & Hoy, 2003), translate for white teachers (Achinstein & Ogawa, 2011), serve as a student role model (Maylor, 2009), or respond to the behavior of white teachers’ students (Bristol & Goings, 2019; Bristol & Mentor, 2018). In addition to addressing norms regarding emotional expression, school leaders need to actively acknowledge these other forms of emotional demands, and shift responsibilities among staff proactively. School leaders and teacher educators may also consider providing affinity spaces/groups, which can facilitate vulnerability and trust among teachers of color and help them navigate the different emotional demands they may experience associated with their identity (Kohli, 2012).

Regardless of their individual identities, all the participants in our study experienced the working conditions in their schools as stressful; this general level of emotional burden left teachers with few resources to navigate emotions arising from individual interactions with students. Without systemic change in the balance of demands and resources to address them, teachers will have no bandwidth for individual or collective critical reflection and development regarding the role of emotions in their work. We recognize that some workplace conditions, such as staffing shortages, may be beyond the control of school-level administrators, and may be exacerbated by COVID-19. However, it is important that as school leaders fill positions within their schools, they set a clear vision for each person’s roles and responsibilities within the organization and acknowledge emotional responsibilities within this vision. And, as leaders consider the implementation of new policies, initiatives, and “innovations,” it is important that they explicitly discuss the emotional demands associated with the types of student–teacher interactions addressed by these policies and initiatives. For example, if school leaders aim to implement policy aimed to reduce suspensions due to perceived disrespect, school leaders should consider holding professional development sessions geared towards building all teachers’ capacity for emotional regulation and emotional de-escalation.

Given the widespread experience of stress and burnout evidenced within this sample, professional development opportunities that support teachers’ stress management may be useful, as they provide teachers with time and space to center themselves and connect with each other. For example, CARE for Teachers, a mindfulness-based professional development program designed to support teachers’ positive interactions with students, has demonstrated evidence of effectiveness in randomized trials (Jennings et al., 2017, 2019). Providing opportunities to learn about such practices communicates to teachers that school leaders value their emotional health: it shows that they recognize teachers’ engagement in emotional regulation as an important aspect of their professional work, and they appreciation teachers’ efforts to engage in this work. Professional learning opportunities can also serve as a maintenance tool by reinforcing or supporting ongoing school initiatives such as restorative practices, rather than introducing a new concept each time. Because teachers in this study indicated a need for ongoing support with changes made at the school level, it is important for school leaders to follow up initial professional development sessions with ongoing opportunities for professional learning, as suggested in Darling-Hammond et al.’s (2017) recent review of effective PD practices.

Does The Call for Innovation Undermine the Complexity of this Work?

Finally, we come to our third and final reflection question, which is how we can effectively unpack the complexity of emotions within cultures created with a mandate to “innovate” and to do under accountability systems with fast timelines. Both schools in this study were in the process of shifting toward more restorative practices; like these two schools, leaders across many states and districts have demonstrated a commitment to increasing positive, restorative teacher-student interactions, through reforms to suspension policies (Department of Education and Secondary Education, 2020b), investments in professional development on trauma-informed practices (e.g., McIntyre et al., 2019), and initiatives to increase restorative practices (Velez et al., 2020). Yet teachers in both schools noted the messiness and complications of these transitions. Thus, our findings suggest that taking the time to understand how teachers experience their work is crucial to designing and implementing effective policies, as policy changes on their own are likely insufficient to improve teacher-student interactions (e.g., reducing disproportionate disciplinary decisions, McIntosh et al., 2018, 2020). Teachers are what Lipsky (2010) called “street-level bureaucrats:” public servants whose experiences and interpretation of policy is essential to its implementation, and sensemaking theory explains that educators’ subjective interpretations of their experiences inform how they implement policies (Coburn, 2001, 2005; Spillane 2001). As such, unless informed by research exploring how teachers make sense of their own experiences within schools, attempts to innovate school practice and policy may not have the intended consequences we seek. If we expect charter schools to innovate in ways that are ethical for students, teachers, and families, we have to recognize that shifts in teacher-student interactions, and the movement toward restorative practices, may not be easy to measure on quick timelines or in standardized ways; we need to continue to use a wide variety of methodologies to understand teachers’ experiences within schools, and their implications for policy. In the following section, we provide recommendations for future research in this area.

Limitations and Directions for Future Research

As an exploratory, but limited, study about how teachers conceptualize the role of their emotions, our study points to several important directions for future research. First, although our sample size fits within recommendations for phenomenological research, we had a relatively small sample size. A larger study with more participants could help researchers identify further nuances in how teachers conceptualize the role of their emotions, and how workplace conditions and identity factor into these roles. In addition, teachers in this study represented two different urban charter schools, each with a unique culture and governing body. We did not gather information regarding the establishment of these charter schools, or the nature of the politics of their establishment or presence within their neighborhoods. These spatio-political histories likely inform the emotional cultures of the school, and the nature of interactions among teachers and students in the schools; future research could involve longitudinal data collection or better situate teachers’ current experiences within the histories of their schools.

Importantly, the juxtaposition of teachers’ external displays of emotions versus their internal reality represents conscious choices teachers made to avoid the liability of emotion during interactions with students. Future research could focus more closely on how emotional and social norms within specific charter schools impact teachers’ choices to display or hide specific emotions (e.g., the display rules of the school, Stark & Bettini, 2021). Research could also examine whether teachers in multiple school settings within one district or charter network (e.g., teachers across multiple schools who follow a single set of policies and procedures) have similar or distinct conceptions of the role of their emotions during teacher-student interactions. Our study was also limited in that we only collected data from teachers at one point in time—this was due to budget constraints as well as the challenges of collecting data from teachers during the COVID-19 crisis. In future research, scholars could conduct longitudinal interviews or surveys to see how their experiences shift over time.

Finally, future research should explore how intersectional aspects of teachers’ identities impact the function of their emotions during specific interactions. Although teachers shared rich data with us, participants likely experienced a broader range of socially undesirable emotions, such as fear, disgust, embarrassment, and anger, than they shared with us, due to social desirability bias. Although our data provided examples of how teachers’ learner identities served as both a tool and a liability during interactions, future research could examine how the intersection of teachers’ learner identities and other identities, such as gender, age, or socioeconomic status, impacts the role of their emotions during interactions.

Despite these limitations, this exploratory study adds to the growing body of research regarding the importance and relevance of teachers’ emotional experiences at work, for both teachers and students. Given the implications of such research for the intersection of policy and practice, we urge future researchers to continue examining how teachers in urban charter schools made sense of the role of their emotions in their work. Understanding how teachers conceptualize the role of their workplace emotions helps school leaders and researchers develop policies and interventions to support teachers in effectively navigating the emotional dimensions of their work.

Appendix A: Semi-Structured Interview Protocol

Intro: Thanks so much for taking the time to meet with me today. I want to start by introducing myself. I just finished my doctorate at [university] and now I work at [university] as a researcher. I was previously a special ed teacher in [city]. In my research, I look at how all the emotions that teachers experience as part of their work affect them and their students. As you know, teaching raises a lot of emotions and these emotions can really influence our work, but sometimes we don’t have the time or space to reflect on them. I’m interested in understanding how educators can use those emotions to serve their students and themselves. So, some of these questions might be things you think about every day, and some you might never think about. There’s no wrong answers, I just want to understand your experiences.

• First of all, can you tell me what your current role is, and what year of teaching this is for you?

• When you think about your job as a teacher, what emotions come to mind?

• Can you give me an example of when you think your emotions supported your work as a teacher?

• Can you give me an example of when you think your emotions got in the way of your work as a teacher?

• Thank you so much for sharing these experiences with me. I really appreciate hearing these examples, because emotions are so important, and they impact so much of the work we do as educators, but there’s not a ton of research about them. In this study, because of my own background in special education, I’m particularly interested in teachers’ emotions when interacting with students with disabilities. So first of all, can you tell me whether you interact with students with disabilities in your role? How so?

• Can you think about a time when you had an interaction with a student with a disability which made you feel a strong emotion?

  • Tell me about that situation?
  • What were you feeling?
  • Why do you think you were feeling that way?
  • What happened as a result?

• Now, I want you to think about a different incident with a student where you also felt a strong emotion, but a different kind of emotion… [same questions]

• [If none of the examples are about behavior]: One of the complex aspects of working with students with disabilities is responding to challenging behavior. Can you think of a time when the behavior of a student with disabilities raised strong emotions for you? What emotion did you experience? Why do you think you felt that way? What happened as a result? You could also share about any other student interaction that brought up strong emotions for you.

• Sometimes educators have to display different emotions externally than what they actually feel internally, for professional purposes. This is called emotional labor. Can you think of a time when you were interacting with a student with a disability and you had to show a different emotion externally than you were feeling inside?

  • Tell me about that situation?
  • What were you feeling?
  • Why do you think you were feeling that way?
  • What happened as a result?

• At the beginning of the interview, you said you’ve been teaching for ____ years. Do you think the way you express your emotions with students has changed since you started teaching?

• How long have you been at your current school? When you think about your school in general, how do you think emotions play the ways that staff respond to the behavior or students with disabilities at your school? Can you give an example?

• One of the aspects of teaching that raises a lot of emotions for many teachers is managing challenging behavior. Charter schools like the one you work at are known for having very rigid behavior response systems, which are designed to be very consistent. Do you think teachers’ emotions ever affect how staff respond to students’ behaviors at your school? Can you give me an example from your own experience, or your observations of a colleague?

• What advice would you give to new teachers in regard to navigating their own emotions?

• The interview is confidential, but if I publish I need to include information about the sample. Usually researchers report the gender and race of their participants. So, I would like to ask you, how would you identify your gender and race?

• Finally, would you like to see a copy of the transcript or the manuscript before I publish it? I like to know so that I can be sure to follow up. Thanks!

Declarations

Conflict of interest

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.