Emotion and Obligation: The Decision-Making of Justice-Centered Early Career Educators in Independent Schools

• In Event: AERA Research in Progress Roundtable Session Two
  In Invited Roundtable: Research-in-Progress RT025 (Thursday)

Abstract

This qualitative study explores how emotion shapes the moral and professional decision-making of early-career teachers committed to justice-centered reflective practice (JCRP) in U.S. independent schools. Drawing on narrative-oriented inquiry within a practitioner-research framework, the project analyzes twelve semi-structured interviews and written philosophies to investigate how teachers navigate dilemmas of justice, care, and craft. Preliminary findings indicate that emotion functions as an epistemic signal within teachers’ moral reasoning, often revealing tensions between justice commitments and institutional constraints. By integrating the literatures of teacher emotion, moral decision-making, and critical pedagogy, this research contributes an analytic model linking teachers’ affective experiences to their ethical judgments, offering implications for teacher education, induction, and justice-oriented professional development.

Author

• Stella K Beale, University of Pennsylvania