Special Issue "Understanding Teachers’ Emotions and Well-being for Sustainable School Development"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Education and Approaches".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2022.

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Hongbiao YIN
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Guest Editor
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Interests: teacher emotion; teacher learning; curriculum reform; student motivation; learning & teaching in higher education
Dr. Ronnel Bornasal King
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Education, University of Macau, E33, Av. da Universidade, Taipa, Macau, China
Interests: well-being; motivation; positive psychology/education
Prof. Dr. Guoxiu Tian
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Teacher Development, College of Teacher Education, Capital Normal University, Beijing 100037, China
Interests: teacher development; school improvement; curriculum studies

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

During the past twenty years, the research on teachers’ emotions and well-being has grown by leaps and bounds after being ignored for decades. Much attention has been paid to the roles of teachers’ emotions, emotional labor, and emotion regulation in facilitating or impeding the development of students, teachers, and schools. The psychological, subjective, and social well-being of teachers has also become a pivotal concern for educational researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. The reasons for the burgeoning rise of research on teachers’ emotions and well-being in the last two decades are threefold: people have entered an ever-changing society full of risks and uncertainties brought by waves of educational reforms since the new millennium; the sustainable development of school and educational systems depends on the professional capital of the school which comprises teachers’ emotional as well as professional capacity; teachers’ well-being and social-emotional skills are the key for facilitating students’ desirable social and emotional development.

The publication of several Special Issues on teacher emotion in journals such as Teaching and Teacher Education (Virtual Special Issue on teachers and emotions in Teaching and teacher education (TATE) in 1985–2014, 2015) and Frontiers in Psychology (Teacher Emotions Matter: Nature, Antecedents, and Effects, 2020) has signified growing interest and significance of this research topic. However, teachers’ emotions and well-being have seldom been related to the issue of sustainable development of teachers and schools. Therefore, the present Special Issue in Sustainability attempts to provide a platform for demonstrating the research progress on teachers’ emotions and well-being across various countries and regions. This SI will extend the knowledge base on  the sustainable development of students, teachers, school leaders, and educational systems.

This Special Issue will focus on, but will not be limited to, the following topics:

  • The theoretical and methodological underpinnings for revealing the connections between teachers’ emotions and well-being and the sustainable development of education;
  • The roles of teachers’ emotions, emotional intelligence, emotional labor, and emotion regulation in the sustainable development of students, teachers, and schools;
  • The roles of teachers’ psychological, subjective, and social well-being in the sustainable development of students, teachers, and schools;
  • The relationships between teachers’ emotions and emotional capaticity and the well-being of students, teacher and schools;
  • The investigations of teachers’ emotions and well-being and sustainable development across different stages from K-12 and higher education;
  • Enablers and barriers to sustaining teachers’ well-being and emotional health at various levels such as individual, school, and policy;
  • Intersections among teacher emotions, well-being, learning, and school climate.

The deadline for 250-word abstract submission is 15 July 2021.

Prof. Dr. Hongbiao YIN
Dr. Ronnel Bornasal King
Prof. Dr. Guoxiu Tian
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • teacher emotion
  • affection
  • emotional labor
  • emotional intelligence
  • emotion regulation
  • emotional capacity
  • teacher well-being
  • psychological well-being
  • subjective well-being
  • social well-being
  • positive psychology
  • flow
  • work engagement
  • job satisfaction
  • burnout
  • stress management
  • coping strategies
  • teacher resilience
  • teacher identity
  • teacher learning
  • teacher-student relationships
  • social-emotional learning
  • teacher professional development
  • emotional leadership
  • school leadership
  • school improvement
  • curriculum change
  • educational reform
  • sustainable professional development
  • sustainable school improvement
  • sustainability of educational system

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

Article
School Management Culture, Emotional Labor, and Teacher Burnout in Mainland China
Sustainability 2021, 13(16), 9141; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13169141 - 16 Aug 2021
Viewed by 232
Abstract
The literature suggests that teacher burnout is influenced by the market and hierarchy cultures of school management and teachers’ emotional labor strategies of surface and deep acting. However, studies have suggested that school management cultures and emotional labor strategies may not function independently [...] Read more.
The literature suggests that teacher burnout is influenced by the market and hierarchy cultures of school management and teachers’ emotional labor strategies of surface and deep acting. However, studies have suggested that school management cultures and emotional labor strategies may not function independently based on the emotional labor theory. Nevertheless, the literature has paid less attention to the relationship between the school management cultures, emotional labor, and teacher burnout. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the relationship between the three variables in China via an online questionnaire survey. After surveying 425 kindergarten, primary and secondary teachers who participated in a professional development program organized by a public university in Beijing, the study found that teacher burnout was positively related to market culture but negatively related to hierarchy culture. Moreover, the impact of the market culture was fully mediated by surface acting while the impact of hierarchy culture was partially mediated by surface acting and deep acting. Full article
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Planned Papers

The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.

Title: Emotion Labor in Spiral Circles and Sustainability of Teacher Development: A Longitudinal Case Study of Veteran College English Lecturers in China

Author: Xiaowei Ding 1, Peter I. De Costa 2, Guoxiu Tian 3

1 School of Foreign Studies, Beijing Information Science and Technology University, Beijing 100192, China; [email protected]

2 Department of Linguistics & Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages, Michigan State University, East Lansing MI 48824, USA; [email protected]

3 College of Teacher Education, Capital Normal University, Beijing 100037, China; [email protected]

Abstract: The majority of current literature regarding teachers’ emotion labor (EL) focuses more on its strategies and correlations with relevant factors in the educational context, thus this concept is generally treated as static or synchronic. The purpose of this study is to explore 2 veteran English lecturers’ dynamic and diachronic EL in nearly 2 decades of their professional development in China. Based on qualitative data of multiple interviews, class observations, teacher reflective notes, students’ feedbacks, and institutional documents, the 18-month longitudinal study found (1) that the focal teachers have been experiencing mixed emotions in their professional development, (2) that their EL is pervasive and has been shaped and reshaped by factors in personal, relational, institutional, and socio-historical contexts, (3) that their previous experiences of EL influence their present EL practice and predict their future performance of EL, and (4) that effective EL is critical to the sustainable professional development of teachers because EL serves as the influencing factor and consequence of long-term negotiations between teachers and their contexts. Those findings embody their EL as a contextual and dynamic process in spiral circles, virtuous or vicious, which has been facilitating or undermining the sustainability of their professional development. Research implications, limitations, and future directions are also discussed.

Keywords: emotion labor; sustainable professional development; spiral circles; language teacher; higher education

The roles of transformational leadership and growth mindset in teacher development: The mediation of teacher self-efficacy

Wei Lin a, Hongbiao Yin b, Zhijun Liu c*

a School of Teacher Education, Guangdong University of Education, Guangzhou, China

b Faculty of Education, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China

c School of Education, Henan University, Kaifeng, China

Abstract: The roles of teacher emotion in educational settings have been steadily gaining prominence in educational research during the past two decades. However, how teachers’ emotions facilitate teacher development is still an under-explored area. Teachers’ attitudes and self-efficacy are among the emotional attributes which have been widely examined in the existing literature. This study attempts to investigate the roles of some school (i.e., transformational leadership) and teacher factors (i.e., teachers’ growth mindset and self-efficacy) in teacher professional development indicated by their reported professional attitudes and practices.

A total of 1297 teachers participated in the questionnaire survey. The results of the study showed that although both transformational leadership and teachers’ growth mindset were positively associated with teacher self-efficacy, transformational leadership had a stronger effect; transformational leadership, rather than growth mindset, was significantly related to the indicators of teacher development. However, teacher self-efficacy significantly mediated the effects of transformational leadership and growth mindset on teachers’ professional attitudes and the adoption of desirable teaching strategies. These findings highlight the importance of teachers’ emotional attributes in teacher development, and provide valuable information for school leaders and teachers to sustain effective professional development in schools.

Keywords: teacher self-efficacy; teacher attitude; growth mindset; transformational leadership; professional development

Title: Correlates of Teacher Emotional Labor in Early Childhood Ed-ucation – the Chinese Experiences

Authors: Xie, Sha; Li, Hui

Author Affiliations: Normal College, the GBA Institute and the Institute of Educational Research, and the Institute of KEEP Collaborative Innovation, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China; School of Education, Macquarie University, Macquarie Park, NSW 2109, Australia

Abstract: The existing literature has established the importance and the correlates of teacher emotional labor. Yet, few explore its relation to students’ achievement. Following Grandey’s (2000) integrative model of emotional labor and social learning theory, this study intended to explore the relationship between teacher’s emotional labor and both teachers’ and children’s well-being in early childhood educational settings. Altogether, 141 teachers and 241 children from twelve pre-schools were selected through stratified random sampling in the city of Shenzhen, China. Teachers’ emotional labor strategies, sense of efficacy, well-being, and children’s psychological well-being were examined. Structural equation modeling will be used to examine three hypotheses regarding the c teachers’ perception of emotional labor: (1) Teachers’ efficacy in instructional strategies, classroom management, and children’s engagement negatively relates to their use of surface acting, but positively relates to the use of deep acting and expression of naturally felt emotion, whereas teacher burnout was positively related to their emotional labor; (2) children’s develop-mental outcomes negatively relate to teachers’ use of surface acting, but positively related to teachers use of deep acting and expression of naturally felt emotion; (3) teachers’ efficacy and burnout mediates the relationship between their emotional labor strategies and children’s developmental outcomes. Implications for research and practice are also included.

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