Emotion labor and professional identity construction of TESOL teacher educators

Abstract

Recent discussions on TESOL teacher education have underlined the importance of further research on teacher educators' emotional experiences. In response to this emerging line of research, the present study explored emotion labor (i.e., the clash between internal feelings and external discourses/expectations) and professional identity construction of Iranian language teacher educators (LTEs). Grounded in a narrative inquiry methodology, the study investigated how contextualities of practice in Iran contributed to LTEs' emotion labor and professional identity construction by collecting data from an open-ended questionnaire, narrative frames, and semi-structured interviews. Our data analysis revealed three themes in relation to the Iranian LTEs’ emotion labor and professional identity construction: (1) emotional clashes regarding the marketization of teacher education, (2) ethical challenges as a site of emotional tensions in institutional work, and (3) disciplinary credentials and institutional affiliations imposing vulnerability on LTEs. Our findings demonstrate that while LTEs face various educational-sociocultural challenges that impose emotion labor on them, they can develop emotionality by exercising agency and promoting praxis in their institutional settings. Based on the findings, we provide implications for such agency-praxis promotion that can benefit various educational stakeholders.