Exploring interpersonal emotion regulation and its characteristics among Chinese early childhood education teachers: A multiple case study

Early childhood education (ECE) teachers frequently confront diverse and challenging interpersonal emotion regulations (IER) that present significant challenges to their own well-being and the children's learning and development. However, existing research has paid less attention to the IER of ECE teachers. To address the research gap, we conducted a qualitative research design to collect the IER strategies of 28 ECE teachers in Guangzhou, China, using interviews and critical incident forms. This study extended a new IER framework to classify the IER strategies of ECE teachers into two dimensions: (a) the target (i.e., intrinsic IER, extrinsic IER, and interpersonal emotion co-regulation) and (b) ways of involvement of IER (i.e., emotion-focused regulation, emotion→cognition-focused regulation, emotion→behavior-focused regulation and emotion→cognition→behavior-focused regulation). The study also analyzed the characteristics of ECE teachers' IER in the Chinese context. The IER strategies differ based on target individuals, frequently occur in close “guan xi”¹, and differ with seniority. This study explored how ECE teachers regulate their emotions or others’ emotions by harmonizing their interpersonal relationships in the Chinese context and provides implications for ECE teacher education programs.