Search

The aim of the article is to describe the teacher’s (emotional) labor and its relationships with the formation of the teacher’s subjectivity. This relationship is especially visible when the relations between the teacher’s emotions and professional work are shown from the perspective of theoretical analyses and research in the field of the affective turn, especially the so-called "affective economies". Based on selected critical and political theories of emotions (i.a. Brian Massumi, Sarah Ahmed, and Teresa Brennan), the teacher’s (emotional) labor is presented here as a tool of auto-(trans)formations and (auto-)reflection and, at the same time, as a place of the affective marginalization of the teacher’s subjectivity and impoverishment of his or her agency. The presented way of conceptualizing emotional labor is a new look at the teacher’s emotions. It provides educational theorists and pedeutologists with analytical tools for empirical research and is also a voice in the discussion, an argument for considering affect in teacher education.

The article describes the notion of teacher’s emotional labor, which is an important and often neglected subject in didactics and pedeutology. The thesis is that the manner in which a teacher's emotional labor is being conceptualized affects test method and interpretation. The article presents three different manners in which emotional labor may be conceptualized: (1) emotional labor as process of emotion regulation (psychological approach); (2) emotional labor as a work requirement (sociological approach); (3) emotional labor as a transformation and development tool/as a byproductive labor (critical approach). Each approach is assigned to a different methodological perspective which may be used by educational researchers: (1) quantitative research; (2) qualitative research; (3) “new'' qualitative studies.