The Power of Heart: A Qualitative Research on Emotional Labor of Student Teachers in Teaching Practicum in China

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Abstract

Drawing on in-depth interviews and observation, this paper examines how student teachers in China construct their professional identities through managing their emotions and conducting the emotional labor in educational practicum. This study intends to show how student teachers deal with emotional events and why they have to experience the variety of emotions to be display in the school contexts. The analysis is framed by Hochschild’s emotional labor conception and Grandey’s model of emotional labor. This paper found that the emotional labor of student teachers in their educational practicum is part of a “relational cluster” of influencing factors, embedded in social interactions, and is a dynamic process rather than a monolithic one.

Author

• Yuqing Liu, The Chinese University of Hong Kong