8082 MD3 Dis 1

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Early Child Development and Care

ISSN: 0300-4430 (Print) 1476-8275 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gecd20

Emotions matter: the moderating role of emotional labour on preschool teacher and children interactions

Elizabeth Levine Brown, Colleen K. Vesely, Duhita Mahatmya & Kari J. Visconti

To cite this article: Elizabeth Levine Brown, Colleen K. Vesely, Duhita Mahatmya & Kari J. Visconti (2018) Emotions matter: the moderating role of emotional labour on preschool teacher and children interactions, Early Child Development and Care, 188:12, 1773-1787, DOI: 10.1080/03004430.2017.1286336

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2017.1286336

Published online: 08 Feb 2017.

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Emotions matter: the moderating role of emotional labour on preschool teacher and children interactions Elizabeth Levine Browna, Colleen K. Veselya, Duhita Mahatmyab and Kari J. Viscontic

aCollege of Education and Human Development, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA; bCollege of Education, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA; cT. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

ABSTRACT Teachers’ emotions in the classroom shape their ability to nurture positive relationships with young children. There is increasing interest in understanding how teachers manage and express their emotions on the job through the use of emotional labour, or the deliberate expression or suppression of emotions to achieve organizational goals. This study investigates how preschool teachers’ emotional labour informs their interactions with young children. Using quantitative survey and observation data from 123 preschool teachers, we found that preschool teachers’ use of emotional labour, particularly surface and deep acting, and their limited perceptions of emotional display rules were linked to the quality of their interactions with young children. Also, the associations between emotional labour and teacher–child interactions were moderated by their perceptions of emotional display rules. Findings have implications for early childhood care and education policy and practice, as well as future research related to the emotional aspects of preschool teachers’ work.

ARTICLE HISTORY Received 15 December 2016 Accepted 20 January 2017

KEYWORDS Emotional labour; teacher emotions; teacher–child interactions; CLASS

A large body of literature establishes the lasting impacts that preschool teachers have on shaping the developmental and academic outcomes of young children (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). In par- ticular, teacher–student interactions (Garner, Moses, & Waajid, 2013; Hamre, Hatfield, Pianta, & Jamil, 2013), which are strongly influenced by emotions and social dynamics experienced in the classroom (Coplan, Hughes, Bosacki, & Rose-Krasnor, 2011), have the potential to contribute to chil- dren’s development (e.g. Garner et al., 2013; Hamre & Pianta, 2005); research point to emotional support as a key contributor to positive teacher–student relationships (Hamre & Pianta, 2005). Given the importance of teachers’ emotions in establishing positive relationships with young chil- dren in the classroom, researchers, both in the United States and abroad, have started to investi- gate how teachers manage and express their emotions on the job through processes of emotional labour, or the deliberate expression or suppression of emotions to achieve organizational goals (Grandey, Diefendorff, & Rupp, 2013; Lee & Brotheridge, 2012). Research in this area has begun to uncover emotional labour embedded within teacher–student relationships and suggests that it may inform our understanding of preschool teacher–student interactions (Hamre, Pianta, et al., 2013). The current study extends this research by exploring how preschool teachers’ use of emotional labour, including both management of emotions and perceptions of emotions to display, shapes their interactions with young children.

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

CONTACT Elizabeth Levine Brown ebrown11@gmu.edu College of Education and Human Development, George Mason University, 4400 University Avenue, MS 4B3, Thompson Hall 1804, Fairfax, VA 20030, USA This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

EARLY CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND CARE 2018, VOL. 188, NO. 12, 1773–1787 https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2017.1286336

Preschool teachers’ emotional labour in context

Research emphasizes the idea that educators’ emotional support is a primary link for fostering teacher–student interactions and positively influencing young children’s developmental and aca- demic outcomes longitudinally (Garner et al., 2013). Moreover, studies illustrates how teachers’ emotional competence (Denham, Bassett, & Zinsser, 2012; Jennings, 2014; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009), emotional support (Hamre, 2014; Hamre, Hatfield, et al., 2013), and emotional regulation (Morris, Denham, Bassett, & Curby, 2013; Sutton, Knight, & Mudrey-Camino, 2009) in the classroom inform our understanding of teacher–student interactions. However, constructs measuring the impact of emotions in the classroom involve the assumption that teachers have mastered the knowl- edge and understanding of organizational expectations for expressing feelings appropriately when working (i.e. emotional display rules) (Ekman, 1973; see also Diefendorff, Croyle, & Gosserand, 2005; Glomb & Tews, 2004) and have acquired the ability to display a different emotion than is actu- ally being experienced (i.e. emotional acting). For example, we can consider a preschool teacher smiling even when he/she might be feeling disappointed on the inside, or a teacher appearing calm on the outside, even though he/she might feel stressed, because expressing feelings of disap- pointment and stress would not support achieving the teacher’s overall goals (e.g. student learning, and child development outcomes). As Denham et al. (2012) emphasize,

… to promote emotional competence, teacher training could focus on helping teachers be willing to show emotions, remain emotionally positive in the classroom despite challenges, and modulate understandable nega- tive emotions. Promotion of their emotional ability could be useful, increasing their abilities to accurately express emotions, generate positivity, reflect on and manage emotions. (p. 141)

Studies that focus on how teachers express and/or suppress their emotions, as well as their under- standing of which emotions to display in the workplace, can help deepen the exploration of how tea- chers’ emotional demands of the job influence their ability to create high-quality interactions with young children in the classroom. Recent studies examine this line of inquiry through the lens of emotional labour, or the deliberate suppression or expression of emotion to meet the goals of an organ- ization (Grandey, 2000; Hochschild, 1983; Morris & Feldman, 1996), which may inform how teachers maintain supportive interactions with children.

Defining emotional labour

Rooted in organizational psychology, existing emotional labour studies focus on occupations in which there are frequent interactions with others (e.g. nursing, airline flight services, and hospitality services). Over the past decade, this line of research transcended into teaching, most prominently K– 12 schooling, and recently early care and education (ECE). Lee and Brotheridge (2012) expressed that the ‘organized emotional care’ reflected in the concept of emotional labour is still understudied among educators of young children. Distinct from emotional regulation research, emotional labour situates itself in the context of a service goal and reflects the expectations of the organization (e.g. preschool) as a whole, which may or may not align with how individuals (e.g. preschool teachers) process their emotions and attend to the emotional cues independently.

Perceptions of emotional display rules and emotional acting are two key concepts of emotional labour. Emotional display rules are organizational rules for expressing emotions appropriately when working (Diefendorff et al., 2005; Glomb & Tews, 2004). Display rules can be positive or negative and explicit or implicit (Kerr & Brown, 2015). A positive display rule describes expectations for expres- sing positive emotions, while a negative display rule describes the expectation to withhold certain emotions in a given situation. When explicit, the display rules define the organization’s expectations for emotional expression or response (e.g. ‘Don’t show your anger to students by yelling’). On the other hand, Yin and Lee (2012) found that when not explicitly defined, educators often rely on their own perceptions of professional norms and school environments to define their emotional expectations.

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Emotional acting encompasses how emotions are displayed compared to how the individual may be feeling on the inside. Surface acting (SA) is the masking of one’s true, internal emotions by disguis- ing affect or pretending to feel another emotion. For instance, consider when a young boy does not hold on to the rope used to assist in walking groups of young children in the hallway, when he is told repeatedly by the teacher to place his hand on the rope. Other children become restless while waiting. Here, the teacher may surface act by having actual feelings of frustration, but displaying calmness instead when trying to redirect the young boy. Another form of emotional acting, deep acting (DA), accounts for an employee’s ability to shift his or her feelings internally to align with the expected emotional display rules (Hochschild, 1983). In the former example, DA would involve the teacher shifting internally her feelings of frustration to compassion after learning the young boy experiences developmental delays in cognition and may need reminders to hold on to the rope when moving in the hallways.

Recent work encourages attention to the role of emotion in schools and in teaching, given that ‘emotions are dynamic parts of ourselves, and whether they are positive or negative, all organizations, including schools, are full of them’ (Hargreaves, 1998, p. 835). However, studying teachers’ percep- tions of emotional display rules or emotional acting alone negates the organizational focus of emotional labour theory; the theory acknowledges the importance of displaying emotions according to the goals of the organization and mapping one’s acting onto the expected display rules to achieve those goals. For example, a teacher who understands that he/she is to show enthusiasm and remain calm in the face of a child having a tantrum may surface act, displaying calmness despite feeling fru- strated and tired, because it is the end of the day. This SA will likely promote a more positive inter- action than if she displayed her actual frustration. Thus, a preschool educator’s perceptions of emotional display rules (e.g. remaining clam when a child is having a tantrum) could influence how she emotionally acts, if the goal is to nurture positive interactions with young children.

Based on our review of the literature, emotional labour studies in teaching, especially in preschool, have not yet considered the unique and joint effects of teachers’ perceptions of emotional display rules and emotional acting as it relates to teacher–child interactions. In fact, we found only one study identifying five emotional display rules of teaching: (1) ‘love for their students’; (2) ‘enthusiasm … for subject matter’; (3) remaining calm; (4) ‘love their work’; and (5) sense of humour (Winograd, 2003, p. 1652). Further, to our knowledge there exists only one study on early childhood educators’ emotional labour. This research indicates the importance of making a ‘conscious effort to enable [childcare] workers to feel the part’ (Lee & Brotheridge, 2012, p. 414), or being able to deep act to authentically display emotions. This study found that childcare providers used both SA and DA to display positive emotions on the job, but utilized only SA to hide negative emotions (Lee & Brother- idge, 2012). What remains unexamined is how these childcare providers perceived their positive display rules (PDR) and negative display rules (NDR) and how those perceptions influenced their emotional acting as well as teacher–student interactions in the classroom.

Preschool teachers’ interactions with young children

Despite robust research on the importance of preschool teacher interactions for children’s develop- ment (Bailey, Zinsser, Curby, Denham, & Bassett, 2013; Bulotsky-Shearer, Bell, Carter, & Dietrich, 2014; Downer et al., 2012; Hamre, Pianta, et al., 2013), limited research exists on how teachers’ emotional labour contributes to these interactions specifically. There are multiple assessments to measure teacher–student interactions and one of the most prominent tools in early childhood classrooms is the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS). The CLASS investigates teacher–student inter- actions through three domains (i.e. instructional support, classroom organization, and emotional support) (Bailey et al., 2013; Brock & Curby, 2014; Curby, Brock, & Hamre, 2013) and dimensions within each of these domains (Li Grining et al., 2010; see also Gloeckler, Cassell, & Malkus, 2014; Hamre, Pianta, et al., 2013; Pianta, Mashburn, Downer, Hamre, & Justice, 2008; Sandstrom, 2012; Zan & Donegan-Ritter, 2014; Zinsser & Curby, 2014).

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The Instructional Support domain includes dimensions of concept development, quality of feedback, and language modelling. Studies with preschool teachers indicate positive associations between dimensions of instructional supports and language and literacy (Bulotsky-Shearer et al., 2014; Downer et al., 2012; Howes et al., 2008; Vitiello, Moas, Henderson, Greenfield, & Munis, 2012), math outcomes (Bulotsky-Shearer et al., 2014; Downer et al., 2012; Mashburn et al., 2008; Vitiello et al., 2012), and social competence (Howes et al., 2008). Dimensions of the Classroom Organization domain are behaviour management, productivity, and instructional learning formats. This type of teacher interaction positively contributes to children’s learning behaviours including initiative, curi- osity, engagement, and persistence (Dominguez, Vitiello, Maier, & Greenfield, 2010), as well as language/literacy, math, and socio-emotional development (Downer et al., 2012). Finally, dimensions for the Emotional Support domain include positive climate, negative climate, teacher sensitivity, and regard for student perspectives. Findings show that these dimensions of emotional support inform chil- dren’s engagement in classroom learning (Hamre, Pianta, et al., 2013), as well as their emotions and aggression (Bailey et al., 2013), emotion regulation (Bailey et al., 2013), social competence (Downer et al., 2012), and higher quality teacher–child relationships (Brock & Curby, 2014).

With new areas of research expanding on emotional labour in the classroom, particularly among early childhood educators (Lee & Brotheridge, 2012), consideration for how preschool teachers’ emotion contributes to the CLASS dimensions of teacher–student interactions seems important. We explore the ways that the emotional labour constructs of perceptions of display rules and emotional acting coexist and shape how preschool teachers interact with children. On the one hand, we expect perceptions of display rules and emotional acting to directly influence the inter- actions between preschool teachers and children, as seen in emotional labour research in other teach- ing contexts (Kerr & Brown, 2015). However, research suggests that the expression and use of emotional labour are not uniform across teaching contexts (Brown, Valenti, & Kerr, 2015) and have different influences on interactions with students in the classroom. Therefore, unlike in special edu- cation studies (Kerr & Brown, 2015; Horner, Brown, & Valenti, 2016), here we presume that display rules and emotional acting occur simultaneously for preschool teachers as a means to promote CLASS outcomes. The limited research in early care and education investigates just emotional display rules or acting separately, without consideration of the interactive effects between the two emotional labour constructs (Lee & Brotheridge, 2012; Winograd, 2003). Our investigation addresses this gap in research and our understanding of preschool teachers’ emotional support and teacher– student interactions, to consider how preschool teachers’ perceptions of emotional display rules and emotional acting inform their interactions with young children. Our specific research questions are: What is the association between preschool teachers’ emotional labour and their interactions with young children? Does a moderation effect between emotional display rules and emotional acting explain variance in teacher–child interactions in preschool classrooms?

Methods

Sample and procedures

This paper examined the experiences of 123 early childhood educators (46% lead teachers) recruited from six preschool programmes (e.g. three Head Start and three publicly funded programmes) who work with low-income families in a large metropolitan area on the east coast. These ECE educators worked in classrooms with teacher–child ratios that met or were lower (1:8, 1:9) than state standards (1:10). On average, teachers were 43 years old, had 12 years of experience, and earned $28,279. In all, 45% were Black or African-American, 24% White, 20% Latino/a, and 5% Asian.

The research team comprised the first two authors and two graduate students, studied early care and education and teacher emotion, and worked with programme administrators to collect survey data from lead and assistant teachers during professional development meetings. For all six of the sites during regularly scheduled faculty meetings, the research team explained the purpose of the

1776 E. L. BROWN ET AL.

study (to better understand ECE teachers’ emotional labour and interactions in preschool class- rooms), operationalized the constructs of the study and described the study procedures to potential participants, including both lead and assistant preschool teachers. Teachers were informed that their participation was voluntary. Across all sites there were fewer than five teachers who declined partici- pation. After teachers agreed to participate and signed an informed consent form, they were given a survey packet to complete. Generally, teachers completed the packet during the time allotted by the programme, which was during work hours, and usually completed this within 45–60 min. In a few cases, teachers requested to complete the survey packet at home. In these limited number of cases, we returned to the site to pick up the packet from the teacher within a week of providing the survey.

CLASS observation data were collected across a four-month period and conducted by the same four reliable observers on the team. CLASS observations were conducted throughout the day on lead and assistant teachers separately, during small and large group activities as well as during free choice activities, lunch, snack, and transitions between activities. Former studies (e.g. Barnett, Yarosz, Thomas, & Hornbeck, 2006; Hamre et al., 2012; Pianta, Mashburn, et al., 2008) support the coding of the CLASS on individual teachers versus the classroom environment as a whole. Obser- vations did not occur during naptime or unstructured outdoor play. The research team entered all data in SPSS and checked to ensure there were no data entry errors.

Measures

Emotional labour The Emotional Labour of Teaching Scale (TELTS) (adapted from Brown, 2011; Brotheridge & Lee, 2003; Diefendorff et al., 2005) measured emotional labour via teacher self-report. This measure includes two instruments: Emotional Display Rules and Emotional Acting. The Emotional Display Rules scale includes two subscales: PDR (e.g. ‘My ECE program expects me to try to act excited and enthusiastic in my interactions with students’) and NDR (e.g. ‘If I am upset or distressed, my ECE program expects me to hide these emotions’). This instrument used a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from Never to Always. Higher scores are more indicative of the perceived existence of emotional display rules in the school setting.

The Emotional Acting scale includes two subscales: SA (e.g. ‘To work with my students I act differ- ently from how I feel’) and DA (e.g. ‘I try to actually experience the emotions that are required of me’). This instrument used a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from Never to Always. SA consisted of five items (α = .75) and DA had three items (α = .53). Items in each subscale were averaged to create composite variables reflecting SA and DA.

Teacher–child interactions The CLASS (Pianta, Laparo, & Hamre, 2008) measured preschool teachers’ interactions with children. This validated measure assessed the classroom setting in terms of 10 dimensions. Each dimension is scored on a 7-point scale, with higher scores desired (except for negative climate, for which a lower score is more desirable) (Hamre, Pianta, et al., 2013). Emotional Support includes the dimensions posi- tive climate, negative climate, teacher sensitivity, and regard for students’ perspectives; Classroom Organization includes behaviour management, productivity, and instructional learning formats; and Instructional Supports includes concept development, quality of feedback, and language model- ling (Hamre, Pianta, et al., 2013). Researchers observed each teacher (separate observations were con- ducted for lead and assistant teachers) for 90–120 min completing three observation cycles (20-min observation followed by 10-min scoring). Observers scored each observation after each cycle com- pletion. Four certified, reliable observers1 conducted the CLASS observations. Three observational items were used to create each construct and Cronbach’s alpha for the subscales ranged from .70 to .86 (with the exception of negative climate for which α = .57). Similar to other research using the CLASS tool (Gloeckler et al., 2014; Hamre, Pianta, et al., 2013; Li Grining et al., 2010; Pianta

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et al., 2008; Sandstrom, 2012; Zan & Donegan-Ritter, 2014; Zinsser & Curby, 2014), we examine each of the 10 dimensions individually to understand which aspects of teachers’ interactions are most closely linked with emotional labour. Descriptives for CLASS are presented in Table 1.

Results

Preliminary analyses

Descriptive statistics and bivariate correlations among all study variables are presented in Tables 1 and 2. Significant correlations emerged among all CLASS variables. In addition, a significant and posi- tive association was found between PDR and NDR, and DA and SA. Significant associations were also evident among emotional labour variables and teachers’ classroom behaviours and interactions with students. Specifically, teachers’ PDR was positively associated with their sensitivity, use of instruc- tional learning formats, and language modelling; teachers’ NDR was positively associated with their regard for students’ perspective. SA showed a positive association with negative classroom climate. DA showed negative associations with negative classroom climate, behaviour management, productivity, and concept development.

Regression analyses

A series of hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted to examine the main and inter- action effects of emotional display rules (i.e. PDR and NDR) and emotional acting (i.e. SA and DA) for predicting classroom climate and teachers’ interactions with students (Cohen, Cohen, West, & Aiken, 2003). Separate analyses were conducted for all CLASS subscales. Teachers’ classroom role,

Table 1. Descriptive statistics (n = 121).

Demographic and professional variables

Teacher’s role 46% lead; 54% assistant Overall experience M = 11.9 years, SD = 8.50 years Experience at current centre M = 6.54 years, SD = 6.44 years Race 47% Black or African -American

25% White 22% Hispanic 6% Asian/Pacific Islander

Education 35% four-year degree 29% two-year degree 22% high school

Annual income M = $28,279, SD = $6767 Age M = 43.3 years, SD = 11.86 years

Additional study variables

Variable M SD Min Max α

Positive display rules 3.49 .40 2.33 4.67 .86 (3 items) Negative display rules 3.89 1.04 1.33 5.00 .84 (3 items) Natural emotion 3.07 .69 .67 4.00 .53 (3 items) Surface acting 2.50 .81 .60 5.00 .75 (5 items) Deep acting 2.87 .85 0 4.00 .53 (3 items) Positive climate 5.86 .73 2.67 7.00 .85 (3 items) Negative climate 1.21 .40 1.00 3.33 .57 (3 items) Teacher sensitivity 5.21 .92 1.33 7.00 .83 (3 items) Regard for student perspectives 5.10 1.03 1.67 7.00 .82 (3 items) Behaviour management 5.65 .86 2.00 7.00 .79 (3 items) Productivity 4.99 .98 1.00 6.67 .70 (3 items) Instructional learning formats 4.21 1.16 1.00 7.00 .75 (3 items) Concept development 2.83 1.26 1.00 5.67 .83 (3 items) Quality of feedback 2.92 1.16 1.00 6.00 .86 (3 items) Language modelling 3.15 1.13 1.00 6.00 .84 (3 items)

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Table 2. Bivariate correlations of emotional labour and CLASS variables.

Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

1. Positive display rules – .50** .05 .13 −.04 .17 −.19* .22* .18 .18 .12 .26** .16 .13 .21** 2. Negative display rules – −.16 .22* .10 .12 −.11 .17 .19* .04 .09 .15 .01 .02 .11 3. Natural emotion – −.09 .08 −.17 .06 −.15 −.20* −.13 −.10 −.14 .07 .03 −.03 4. Surface acting – .46** −.11 .24** −.03 −.10 −.16 −.23* −.14 −.21* −.13 −.13 5. Deep acting – −.11 −.24** −.06 −.10 −.21* −.13 −.09 −.09 −.07 −.13 6. Positive climate – −.57** .77** .67** .76** .64** .55** .40** .45** .49** 7. Negative climate – −.41** −.42** −.63** −.42** −.37** −.25** −.22* −.−.31* 8. Teacher sensitivity – .83** .63** .71** .63** .42** .54** .59** 9. Regard for student perspectives – .57** .66** .64** .34** .42** .55** 10. Behaviour management – .68** .57** .41** .41** .44** 11. Productivity – .69** .40** .41** .49** 12. Instructional learning formats – .53** .48** .63** 13. Concept Development – .89** .74** 14. Quality of feedback – .79** 15. Language modelling –

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

E A R LY

C H ILD

D E V ELO

P M E N T A N D C A R E

1 7 7 9

overall experience in ECE, their length of experience at their current centre, and natural emotions were included in the first block of predictors as control variables. Teachers’ mean-centred scores on PDR, NDR, SA, and DA were included in the first block of predictors to examine their main effects on the CLASS subscales. The second block of predictors included four interactions: (1) PDR × SA, (2) PDR × DA, (3) NDR × SA, and (4) NDR × DA. Following the procedures outlined by Aiken and West (1991), all linear variables and interactions were centred prior to adding them into the regression model. Models were interpreted if they predicted a significant proportion of variability in the outcome of interest (i.e. a significant R2 value). Interaction terms were interpreted if the second step of the analysis yielded a significant increase in the proportion of variability explained (i.e. a significant ΔR2). The overall regression model explained a significant proportion of variability in the following seven CLASS subscales: positive climate, negative climate, teacher sensitivity, regard for students’ perspective, behaviour management, and concept development. Results of these models are presented in Table 3.

In general, teachers’ role in the classroom (e.g. lead versus assistant) was associated with negative climate and concept development, such that lead teachers demonstrated not only less negative classroom climate, but also lower concept development than assistant teachers. Teachers’ length of experience at their current centre, but not overall ECE, was associated with higher ratings of teacher sensitivity, behaviour management, and concept development in the classroom. Main effects for PDR were found for positive climate, teacher sensitivity, regard for students’ perspective, and behaviour management. Across these four CLASS subscales, higher rates of PDR were associated with higher ratings on that measure. There were no main effects found for NDR. A main effect of SA was found for negative classroom climate; a one standard deviation increase in SA was associated with a 0.21 standard deviation increase in negative classroom climate.

Several interactions were found between the emotional display rules and emotional acting vari- ables. Tests of simple slopes were used to probe these interactions following recommendations by Aiken and West (1991); simple slope analyses examined the association between the emotional display rules (i.e. PDR and NDR) and each dependent variable for low (−1 SD), average, and high (+1 SD) DA or SA. There was a negative interaction effect between PDR and DA on negative classroom climate. As displayed in Figure 1, results of these tests suggest that DA was significantly associated with negative classroom climate, but only for teachers who reported lower PDR (β = −.37, p < .01); teachers who report low PDR exhibit a steeper decline in negative classroom climate as DA increases.

Table 3. Summary of regression analyses with main and interaction effects of emotional display rules and emotional acting on CLASS.

Predictor

Positive climate

Negative climate

Teacher sensitivity

Regard for students’ perspective

Behaviour management

Concept development

β Δ R2 β Δ R2 Β Δ R2 β Δ R2 β Δ R2 β Δ R2

Step 1: .16* .19** .15* .15* .17** .19** Teacher role .15 −.22* .14 −.02 .10 −.30** Experience in ECE −.03 −.07 −.18 −.14 −.01 −.17 Experience at current centre .22 −.13 .25* .14 .26* .31** Natural emotions −.23* .07 −.20* −.25** −.20* −.04 Positive display rules (PDR) .23* −.18 .22* .20* .27** .14 Negative display rules (NDR) .05 −.04 .11 .13 −.08 −.06 Surface acting −.11 .21* −.08 −.16 −.10 −.19 Deep acting −.04 .18 −.02 −.01 −.13 .08

Step 2: .03 .08* .02 .05 .03 .01 PDR × surface acting −.03 −.18 −.00 .02 .05 .11 PDR × deep acting .01 −.22* −.06 −.09 .11 −.02 NDR × surface acting .22 −.02 .17 .24* .16 .01 NDR × deep acting −.13 .11 −.14 −.26* −.15 −.09 Note: Coefficients presented are from the highest significant hierarchical step. †p < .08. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

1780 E. L. BROWN ET AL.

This association was not significant for teachers with average levels of PDR (β = −.18, p = ns) or high PDR (β = .01, p = ns).

There was also a significant negative interaction effect between NDR and DA (Figure 2). DA was significantly associated with regard for students’ perspective, but only for teachers who reported low NDR (β = .32, p < .05); teachers who report low NDR exhibit a steeper increase in their regard for students’ perspective as DA increases. This association was not significant for teachers with average NDR (β = .13, p = ns) or high NDR (β = −.07, p = ns).

There was a positive interaction effect between NDR and SA (Figure 3). Results of the simple slope analyses revealed that SA was significantly associated with regard for students’ perspective, but only for teachers who reported high NDR (β = .34, p < .05). This association was not significant for teachers with average NDR (β = .13, p = ns) or low NDR (β = −.08, p = ns). Compared to teachers with average or low NDR, teachers who report high NDR show an increase in their regard for students’ perspective as SA increases.

Discussion

The goal of the current study was to investigate how preschool teachers’ emotional labour informs their interactions with young children. Our analyses examined the main effects of preschool teachers’ perceptions of emotional display rules and their emotional acting, and the interactions among these variables in preschool classroom settings. Results from the regression analyses demonstrated a

Figure 1. PDR × deep acting interaction for negative classroom climate.

Figure 2. NDR × deep acting interaction for regard for students’ perspective.

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positive main effect of PDR on positive classroom climate, teacher sensitivity, regard for students’ per- spective, and behaviour management. Across all of these classroom outcomes, higher PDR was associated with higher endorsements of the aforementioned CLASS outcomes. Results also found a positive main effect of SA on negative classroom climate, whereby higher SA was associated with higher negative classroom climate. Although the main effect of SA on negative classroom climate is concerning, the main effect results in total do not provide the entire picture for how pre- school teachers are utilizing emotional labour in their classrooms.

Our analyses revealed three significant interaction effects. The negative interaction effects between PDR and DA on negative classroom climate and between NDR and DA on regard for stu- dents’ perspective suggest that lower reports of perceptions of emotional display rules, when paired with higher DA, result in improved classroom settings. The interaction between PDR and DA illustrates that for preschool teachers with lower perceptions of PDR, engaging in DA may improve the classroom climate by decreasing a negative classroom climate. Likewise, for preschool teachers who have lower perceptions of NDR, engaging in DA improves their regard for students’ per- spective. These interaction effects indicate that the relationship between emotional display rules and teachers’ interactions with children is more complex than the main effects allude. The results demon- strate the complicated nature of the classroom interactions, notably the importance of investigating the interplay of different dimensions of emotional display rules and emotional acting to promote the most optimal CLASS outcomes.

These results also highlight how preschool educators’ use of DA may vary when paired with PDR versus NDR. For instance, preschool teachers’ DA may suggest that teachers are reflective about negotiating between what is expected and what they feel. When teachers have lower perceptions of PDR or NDR, it seems DA informs their interactions especially when they are without explicit defi- nitions on what is expected for their display of emotion. Further, results speak to the interplay of per- ceptions of emotional display rules and emotional acting, noting that it is not enough to only know the emotional display rules or the expectations for how to display emotions, but also how to emotion- ally act for optimal CLASS outcomes. Based on a thorough review of the emotional labour literature, these results are new to emotional labour research.

Unlike the emotional labour research that describes negative outcomes such as burnout (Noor & Zainuddin, 2011), emotional exhaustion (Keller, Chang, Becker, Goetz, & Frenzel, 2014), and teacher satisfaction (Yin, Lee, & Zhang, 2013) when teachers (K–12) surface act, preschool teachers may be a unique population that benefits from the knowledge and use of SA. For example, main effects showed that SA is more associated with negative classroom climate. The third interaction effect found in our study deepens this finding to highlight how when perceptions of NDR are paired with higher SA preschool teachers displayed higher regard for student perspectives. So, not only do preschool teachers need to explicitly know the NDR within their programmes, but also it is ben- eficial for them to engage in SA to promote emotional support in the classroom.

Figure 3. NDR × surface acting interaction for regard for students’ perspective.

1782 E. L. BROWN ET AL.

As noted previously in our literature review, the Emotional Support domain includes dimensions regard for students’ perspective as well as positive climate, negative climate, and teacher sensitivity. In examining these dimensions independently to unpack how emotional support is portrayed, one begins to wonder if the execution of certain CLASS dimensions is more difficult than others. For example, the ability to smile, have eye contact, and not yell (indicators of positive and negative climate) may be considered less taxing than emphasizing students’ point of view, supporting auton- omy and movement in the classroom, and being flexible (indicators of regard for student perspec- tives). Notably, 2014 national-level rankings of the CLASS show that regard for student perspectives within the Emotional Support domain is the lowest amongst the dimensions (5.47; range 3.17–7); positive climate rankings range from 5 to 7, indicating that regard for student perspec- tives may require more process thinking to execute students’ needs in the classroom. The interaction effects found in this study start to uncover these nuances.

Limitations

There are limitations to this study that should be noted. First, teachers’ emotional labour measures were self-reported and did not include any form of observation to triangulate the data. However, the observation measure utilized to understand teacher–student interactions was the CLASS, a notably reliable measure for investigating classroom interactions. As we continue to build our under- standing of emotional labour among preschool teachers, it might be important to try to capture tea- chers’ emotional labour through other mixed-method measures (Wharton, 2009).

Second, we highlighted teachers’ experiences at a single point in time when research speaks to the variability of teachers’ experiences across the school year. Investigation into this research para- digm longitudinally may provide a richer understanding of preschool teachers’ emotional acting and use of emotional display rules to examine teacher–student interactions.

Third, the current study reflects a departure from the existing literature in a number of important ways. This is the second study to utilize the emotional labour scale with preschool teachers, a field in which professionals face unique challenges and emotional stressors. Because this is one of the first studies of this nature, future scale development and psychometric work will be important to address certain limitations that were identified in this study. Even though prior research has validated the subscales of the emotional labour scale with diverse samples of teachers and service employees (Cuker, 2009; see also Brotheridge & Lee, 2003; Diefendorff et al., 2005), additional measurement work will be required to more fully examine the use of this scale with preschool teachers. As Cronbach’s alpha is known to underestimate the internal reliability of scales (Sijtsma, 2009), a post hoc principal components analysis was conducted on the emotional acting scale. Results suggested a clear two- factor structure within the emotional acting scale (i.e. DA and SA). However, two items (‘I try to actu- ally experience the emotions that are required of me’ and ‘The emotions I show to my students match the emotions I should feel’) were found to cross-load on multiple subscales. Together, these results not only strengthen the conceptual structure underlying this scale, but also indicate that future psy- chometric work is needed to create additional items that help differentiate among the constructs of the emotional acting scale.

Implications for research and practice

The findings deepen the importance of studying emotional labour as a unified theory investigating emotional acting and emotional display rules simultaneously. Emotional labour research in K–12 teaching (Brown, Horner, Kerr, & Scanlon, 2014) speaks to the importance of this comprehensive review of emotional labour theory; however, based on our knowledge, this is one of the first empirical studies in ECE that investigates the emotional labour theory as a whole. As noted earlier, Lee and Brotheridge (2012) focused on childcare providers’ emotional acting and emotional display rules, but the emotional display rules studied do not speak to the perceptions of positive and negative

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emotional rules. Rather, they described expressions of empathy and anger directly. Results here high- light the necessity for both pre-service and in-service work to focus on the emotional display rules required of preschool teachers, while also discussing how emotional acting may support navigating the expected emotional display rules in order to promote optimal classroom interactions.

Given the contextual differences across teaching settings, these results support the importance of situating the expectations of emotional labour within ECE preparation programmes and preschools and centres themselves. Research in special education documents how the knowledge and under- standing of emotional display rules and emotional acting are important within their classroom walls, yet the interplay of emotional labour constructs looks different (Kerr & Brown,2015). Another study shows how special educators describe their knowledge and execution of SA as a ‘survival mech- anism’ (Brown et al., 2015, p. 8). In contrast, Lee and Brotheridge (2012) found that ECE educators’ use of DA aligned with displays of empathy (perceived as a positive emotion) rather than anger (per- ceived as a negative emotion). The findings here highlight the complex interplay between percep- tions of emotional display rules and emotional acting for preschool teachers, suggesting that the teaching context may influence the employment of emotional labour.

Programmes might also consider dialoguing about the use of emotional labour within preschools and centres. The dialogue can establish a common language on the role and relevance of the emotional demands within the teaching practice. Through establishing a common language that supports preschool teachers’ navigation of emotional complexities in their classrooms, especially when interacting with young children, we remove the often personalized, trait-based approach (e.g. ‘If you could … only be a little nicer … or like this child more … ’) of supervision and evolve to addressing skills that teachers should behold. Given the importance of teachers’ perceptions of emotional display rules, it seems imperative for the field and, more narrowly, preschool centres to identify and expose teachers to expected emotional display rules. The results here also show that dis- cussion at the school level on how educators emotionally act given their perceptions of the emotional displays rules seems important. Programmes ought to be intentional about developing and working with teachers to understand and enact these emotional display rules, and use forms of emotional acting which may influence their interactions to young children.

Conclusion

The emotional demands that preschool teachers face are significant; yet there is limited understand- ing for how these teachers navigate this emotional landscape, in terms of expressing and suppressing their emotions and their knowledge of the expected emotional display rules. This study continues this new line of research on the concept of emotional labour in early care and education, but extends former research by beginning to investigate how preschool teachers manage and display their emotions on the job to promote positive interactions with young children.

Note

1. All coders attended a two-day workshop in which they learned the CLASS tool via video observations and accom- panying manual for scoring. Each coder completed the reliability test, which consisted of five 20-minute videos of pre-K classrooms, and scored within one point of the master codes 80% of the time.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Elizabeth Levine Brown is an assistant professor in the Elementary Education and Human Development and Family Science programs in the College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University. She received

1784 E. L. BROWN ET AL.

her Ph.D. in applied developmental psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. Her research examines the intercon- nectivity of developmental and psychological influences on learning for marginalized children and youth from prekin- dergarten through twelfth grade.

Colleen K. Vesely is an assistant professor in the Early Childhood Education and Human Development and Family Science programs in the College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University. She received her Ph.D. in family science from the University of Maryland. Her research examines how low-income, marginalized parents with young children negotiate parenthood, particularly as they navigate the education, child care, health care, and social welfare systems in the United States.

Duhita Mahatmya is an assistant research scientist in the College of Education at the University of Iowa. She received her Ph.D. in human development and family studies from Iowa State University. Dr. Mahatmyas broad research interests examine the interplay of individual, family, school, and community factors on the social and academic resilience of ado- lescents and their families.

Kari Jeanne Visconti is a lecturer in the T. Denny Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State Univer- sity. She received her Ph.D. in family and human development from Arizona State University. Her research interests focus on the role of cognitive and emotional factors in children’s peer relationships, with emphasis on aggression and peer victimization.

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