The emotional labor of physical education teachers in ‘difficult contexts’: an inductive analysis of the most significant moments of their career

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Originally, the concept of emotional labor comes from the sociological work of Hochschild (1983. The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley: The University of California Press). In recent decades, it has also been defined in approaches of a more psychological nature within a variety of professional contexts. However, the emotional labor of teachers has been the subject of only a limited number of studies, especially in Physical Education (PE). It is essential to better understand the forms and inducers of teachers' emotional labor in this context. PE in ‘difficult' teaching contexts particularly can test teachers' emotions. This article aims to analyze the forms and inducers of PE teachers' emotional labor in ‘difficult’ contexts, during the most significant moments of their career, according to an inductive situated psychological approach.

Method

61 PE teachers working in ‘difficult’ French classrooms agreed to participate in this research. Using the critical incident method, we asked these teachers to tell us about the most significant moments of their career in this context. The 203 critical incidents collected were inductively analyzed, according to a ‘grounded theory’ approach, in five stages. Processing data in this way allowed us to identify the forms and inducers of the teachers’ emotional labor in each critical incident collected.

Results

Four forms of emotional labor were identified through the analysis. Two of them refer to an active position (n = 116; 57.1%): ‘To master the negative emotions generated by an unpleasant situation’ and ‘To master the positive emotions generated by a pleasant situation’. The remaining two categories relate to a passive position (n = 87; 42.9%): ‘To feel and express the positive emotions generated by a pleasant situation’ and ‘To feel and express the positive emotions emerging from an unpleasant situation’. The inducers of the teachers’ emotional labor were mostly negative (n = 106; 44.9%) and can be divided into six categories (including that of ‘Student violence against the teacher’). Conversely, three categories of positive inducers were also identified (n = 130; 55.1%), especially that of the ‘Quality of human relations within the school’. The relationship between the forms and inducers of the teachers’ emotional labor revealed that the active forms emerged from negative inducers and that the passive forms were related to positive inducers.

Discussion and conclusions

The emotional labor of PE teachers in ‘difficult’ contexts mainly consists in mastering negative emotions in situations that are sometimes very risky. These situations are mostly linked to student violence, social difficulties, and disruption. However, our results also highlight the fact that PE teaching in ‘difficult’ contexts should not be viewed solely as negative. Teachers also experience significant positive emotions, which refer to the passive forms of emotional labor. These positive emotions are moreover intense since the teachers have previously experienced difficulties in this context. They are mainly linked to the quality of human relations within these schools.