Emotional Labor, Gendered Care, and Educational Leadership Educators During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review your manuscript. The study is theoretically grounded, methodologically coherent, and thematically timely. It makes a meaningful contribution to the international discourse at the intersection of emotional labour, care ethics, and educational leadership preparation. Through a secondary analysis conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, the manuscript convincingly demonstrates that educators' emotional labour in leadership preparation programs is not marginal but a central, structurally undervalued dimension of leadership education.

A particular strength of the study is that it moves beyond a normative and idealized view of care. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Hochschild and Tronto, the authors make visible the political, gendered, and racialized dimensions of caring practices. Overall, the manuscript is close to publication readiness; however, in several places it would benefit from greater conciseness, sharper focus, and stronger methodological reflexivity.

Theoretical Framework and Engagement with the Literature

The manuscript employs a strong and well-developed theoretical framework. The integration of Hochschild's theory of emotional labour, feminist critiques of academic labour, and Tronto's political theory of care is original and consistently applied. It is particularly valuable that the authors explicitly reflect on the analytical shift from an earlier focus on care as pedagogy toward an understanding of care as labour and risk.

At the same time, Sections 1.3–1.4 contain some repetition of key concepts (e.g., gendered and racialized expectations of care, institutional invisibility), which slightly weakens the overall tightness of the argument. A more synthesized conclusion to the theoretical section would help clarify more explicitly what constitutes the manuscript's specific theoretical contribution beyond the existing literature.

Methodology and Research Design

The use of secondary phenomenological analysis is appropriate. A notable strength is the authors' careful reflection on ethical boundaries, alignment with the original research focus, and the legitimacy of the secondary analysis.

The strength of the sample lies not in its size, but in its theoretical relevance and experiential density. The participants are particularly well-positioned to articulate the emotional labour of care in leadership education, making the dataset well-suited for phenomenological and theory-informed analysis, while not intended for statistical generalization. That said, given the size and composition of the sample (N = 9), a stronger methodological self-limitation in the formulation of conclusions would be advisable. While qualitative research does not aim for statistical generalization, the manuscript at times implicitly refers to structural patterns (e.g., institutional cultures, system-level expectations) that may not be fully substantiated by this dataset alone. Drawing a clearer distinction between interpretations grounded in participants' narratives and broader theoretical implications would strengthen the analysis.

While the Methods section clearly describes the analytic procedures, it would benefit from a few methodological references to situate the secondary qualitative analysis and theory-informed thematic approach within established qualitative research traditions.

In addition, although formal ethical approval and informed consent for secondary analysis are clearly stated, the ethical considerations of reinterpreting participants' narratives through a different theoretical lens could be made more explicit. The original study foregrounded care as a pedagogical and relational practice, whereas the present analysis reframes these narratives through the lens of emotional labour and the political theory of care, shifting from "care as pedagogical good" to "care as labour and risk", and emphasizing burden, risk, and structural inequality. A brief reflexive discussion of how this theoretical shift may alter the meaning and positioning of participants' accounts—and how the authors navigated this interpretive responsibility—would further strengthen the study's methodological and ethical rigor.

Results and Analysis

The results section is rich, detailed, and empirically persuasive. The five thematic units are logically structured and effectively demonstrate the multi-level nature of emotional labour (individual, institutional, and community).

Key strengths include the consistent development of the "being the anchor" metaphor; the vivid illustration of blurred boundaries between teaching and counselling; the empirical articulation of gendered and racialized expectations of care; and the interpretation of boundary-setting as a form of micro-resistance.

At the same time, the results section shows some imbalance. Narratives related to "being the anchor" and family-related burdens are presented at considerable length, with multiple extended quotations and detailed accounts of daily practices and work–home arrangements. In contrast, other themes that are central to the manuscript's structural argument (such as institutional responses, organizational expectations, or the absence of leadership-level support) remain more implicit and are articulated mainly in the interpretive discussion rather than through sustained empirical illustration.

Discussion and Contribution

The discussion section is theoretically ambitious and intellectually strong. In some places, however, it reiterates the results rather than further elevating the analysis to a higher level of abstraction. In Sections 4.4–4.6, several closely related formulations of "unique contribution" appear; consolidating and prioritizing these claims would strengthen the overall argument.

It is a clear strength that the authors avoid individualizing the problem and instead emphasize institutional and structural responsibility. At the same time, the political implications could be sharpened by focusing on more concrete mechanisms (e.g., workload models, promotion and tenure criteria, mentoring structures), so that the recommendations do not remain overly general.

Recommendation: Accept with Minor Revisions

The manuscript has high scholarly value, fits well within the journal's scope, and is relevant to an international readership. The suggested revisions are primarily editorial, organizational, and methodological in nature and do not call into question the study's core arguments or overall validity.

Kind regards,

Reviewer

Author Response

Responses to Reviewer 1

We thank Reviewer 1 for recognizing the manuscript’s theoretical grounding and contribution while offering helpful suggestions for clarity and focus.

Theoretical concision and synthesis

We revised Sections 1.3–1.4 to reduce repetition and added a clearer concluding synthesis of the manuscript’s theoretical contribution.

Methodological reflexivity and limits of generalization

We strengthened Sections 2.4 and 6 to:

• Clarify the interpretive scope of the qualitative sample;
• Distinguish participant-grounded insights from broader theoretical interpretation;
• Expand reflexive discussion of the secondary analytic shift from “care as pedagogical good” to “care as labor and risk.”

These revisions reinforce methodological rigor and ethical accountability in secondary qualitative analysis.

Balance across Results themes

We refined the Results and Discussion to ensure stronger alignment between empirically illustrated themes and structural interpretations, particularly regarding institutional expectations and organizational response.

Sharpening practical implications

We revised the Implications section to include more concrete institutional mechanisms such as workload models, promotion and tenure recognition, mentoring structures, and equity-focused monitoring of care labor.

Thanks

We sincerely appreciate the reviewers’ careful reading and insightful recommendations. Their feedback substantially improved the manuscript’s clarity, methodological transparency, and theoretical integration. We believe the revised manuscript now more clearly demonstrates that emotional labor is a central, structurally significant dimension of educational leadership preparation and faculty well-being during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thank you for your consideration of the revised manuscript. We look forward to your response.

Warm regards,
Authors

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This manuscript offers a timely and conceptually ambitious contribution to the COVID-era higher education literature by focusing on educational leadership educators as a distinctive population whose work entails multi-layered emotional labor, including supporting graduate students who were themselves leading PK-12 and higher education institutions through crisis. The analytic move from “care as pedagogical good” to “care as labor and risk” is clearly articulated and productive, and the integration of Hochschild’s emotional labor framework with feminist scholarship on gendered/racialized academic labor and Tronto’s political theory of care provides a strong scaffold for interpretation. The five themes are generally coherent and the manuscript is readable, with an implications section that is more concrete than is often the case in qualitative work.

However, there is one foundational internal-consistency problem that must be resolved before the findings can be evaluated as trustworthy. In addition, the secondary-analysis workflow can be made more transparent in a few targeted ways that would strengthen the manuscript’s credibility without changing its core argument.

Major issues

1.- Pseudonym inconsistency breaks the qualitative audit trail and raises de-identification concerns. The paper states that the dataset consists of interviews with nine educational leadership educators, and Table 1 lists nine participant pseudonyms. For clarity, the Results section also provides a list of pseudonyms used in the analysis (e.g., around Lines 280-283). However, multiple quotations in the Results are attributed to “Dr. Carter” (e.g., Lines 455, 487, 523), a pseudonym that does not appear in Table 1 and is not included in the Results section’s own pseudonym list. This inconsistency is not merely cosmetic: it disrupts the evidence trail (i.e., which participant is speaking) and, in turn, undermines interpretive claims that hinge on participant role and demographics, because readers cannot reliably link quotations back to the described sample.

In practical terms, it also creates avoidable uncertainty about the pseudonymization process and the study N. If “Dr. Carter” is an additional participant, this has implications for the stated sample size and the descriptive claims made about the sample. If not, it suggests misattribution of quotes, which would require correction across the Results and any downstream interpretation.

Please conduct a complete pseudonym audit across Table 1 and all in-text quotations to ensure that every quotation is consistently attributed to one of the nine listed pseudonyms (or, if a tenth participant exists, revise the sample description and Table 1 accordingly). As part of this audit, it would also be helpful to confirm that the demographic descriptors and pseudonym choices are presented in a way that minimizes confusion for readers while maintaining de-identification.

2.- Strengthen transparency of the secondary analysis and the analytic decision trail
The rationale for the secondary analysis is well motivated, and the description of a theoretically informed thematic analysis is helpful (e.g., re-reading transcripts, combining deductive and inductive codes, clustering into themes, and attending to disconfirming evidence). Still, to allow readers to fully evaluate analytic credibility, especially given the secondary nature of the analysis, some additional procedural detail would materially strengthen the Methods section.

Please specify (i) who conducted the coding and theme development (e.g., one author vs. both; sequential vs. parallel coding), (ii) how interpretive differences were addressed (e.g., consensus meetings, adjudication process), and (iii) how you operationalized the interaction between deductive and inductive coding in practice beyond the general description (for example, whether the deductive framework was applied first and then expanded inductively, or whether you iterated cyclically from the outset). If journal space allows, a compact table that maps each theme to its core codes and one or two representative quotation identifiers (pseudonyms only) would make the analytic trail easier to follow without overburdening the main text.

3.- Make the “conceptual moves” more explicit across emotional labor, care ethics, and politics of care. The theoretical framing is a clear strength of the paper, and you already establish the key conceptual components in the opening sections. To maximise the payoff of that framework, the manuscript would benefit from a slightly more explicit synthesis that shows, theme by theme, how the analysis is moving between (a) emotional labor as emotion management under institutional feeling rules, (b) care ethics as a normative-relational orientation, and (c) politics of care as a question of distribution, recognition, and power.

Consider adding a brief integrative paragraph (or a simple schematic/figure) that “tags” each theme with the main conceptual mechanism(s) being activated (e.g., feeling rules and emotional dissonance; Tronto’s phases of care; distribution/recognition of care labor). This would help prevent readers from collapsing these related but distinct constructs into a single, undifferentiated notion of “care,” and it would also strengthen the paper’s contribution to theory-building.

Minor issues

Abstract vs. Table 1 sample description: The abstract reports “four educators of color” (Line 14), but Table 1 appears to indicate a different count depending on how “educators of color” and Hispanic ethnicity are being operationalized. Please reconcile the number and briefly clarify your categorization to avoid ambiguity.

Table 1 race/ethnicity reporting: The labels appear inconsistent across participants (e.g., “Hispanic / Person of Color” versus “White, Hispanic”). Please standardize reporting (ideally by separating race and ethnicity, or by explicitly stating and applying a single combined scheme consistently).

Formatting/structure: There is a clear heading disruption where “5. Conclusions” appears mid-paragraph (Line 725) immediately before the “5. Implications” heading, while the manuscript later includes “7. Conclusions.” Please remove the stray heading and renumber sections sequentially.

Copyediting: In the end matter, “Data Availability Statement: :” contains an extra colon (Line 936). A quick scan for similar minor punctuation artefacts introduced during layout would be worthwhile.

Author Response

Response to the Editor and Reviewers

Manuscript ID: behavsci-4111944
Title: Emotional Labor, Gendered Care, and Educational Leadership Educators During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Dear Editor and Reviewers,

Thank you for the careful and constructive review of our manuscript. We are grateful for the thoughtful engagement with our work and for the guidance that has strengthened the clarity, rigor, and contribution of the study. We have revised the manuscript in response to all reviewer comments. Below we provide a point-by-point description of the revisions made.

 

Responses to Reviewer 2

We appreciate Reviewer 2’s close attention to internal consistency, methodological transparency, and theoretical integration.

Major Comment 1: Pseudonym inconsistency

Reviewer concern: Quotations attributed to “Dr. Carter” were not aligned with the pseudonym list, disrupting the qualitative audit trail.

Response:
We conducted a full audit of pseudonyms across Table 1 and all in-text quotations. All quotations are now consistently attributed to one of the nine participants listed in Table 1. The pseudonym list in the Results section has been aligned with Table 1 to ensure a clear evidentiary trail and accurate sample representation.

Major Comment 2: Transparency of the secondary analytic process

Reviewer concern: Clarify who coded, how disagreements were resolved, and how deductive and inductive coding interacted.

Response
We expanded Section 2.3 (Data Analysis) to provide explicit procedural detail. The revision now specifies that:

• Both authors conducted the secondary analysis collaboratively.
• Coding began with a shared deductive codebook derived from Hochschild’s emotional labor theory and Tronto’s political theory of care.
• The codebook was expanded inductively through iterative engagement with transcripts.
• The authors met regularly to compare coding, discuss interpretations, and resolve discrepancies through consensus, returning to full transcript context to verify interpretations.
• Theme development incorporated disconfirming evidence and variation across participants to enhance analytic credibility.

These additions strengthen methodological transparency and clarify the analytic decision trail.

Major Comment 3: Clarifying conceptual movement across emotional labor, care ethics, and politics of care

Reviewer concern: Make theoretical integration more explicit across themes.

Response
We strengthened the synthesis of theoretical perspectives in Sections 1.4 and 4 by explicitly articulating how:

• Emotional labor theory explains feeling rules, emotion management, and dissonance;
• Feminist scholarship reveals uneven gendered and racialized distribution of care labor;
• Political care ethics situates care within structures of power, recognition, and responsibility.

We also revised the Discussion to more clearly demonstrate how each thematic finding reflects the interaction of these conceptual lenses.

Minor Comments

Abstract vs. Table 1 demographic count

We reconciled the count of educators of color and clarified the categorization of race/ethnicity in both the abstract and Table 1.

Race/ethnicity reporting consistency

We standardized race/ethnicity labels across Table 1 for clarity and consistency.

Formatting and heading structure

We corrected the misplaced heading and ensured sequential section numbering throughout the manuscript.

Copyediting

Minor punctuation and formatting issues, including the extra colon in the Data Availability Statement, were corrected.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the careful revision. The main concern about the qualitative audit trail has been convincingly addressed: pseudonyms are now aligned across Table 1 and the Results, which substantially improves internal consistency and interpretability. 
In addition, the expanded description of the secondary analytic process (collaborative coding, deductive-to-inductive refinement, and consensus-based resolution) strengthens methodological transparency, and the conceptual integration across emotional labor, feminist scholarship, and Tronto’s political care ethics is now articulated more explicitly in the framing and carried through the discussion.