Emotional activities of teachers' work: a Shadowing study in Chile

Abstract

In this article we present a study on emotional activities in secondary teachers’ everyday work from different educational contexts in Santiago, Chile. Carried out with an ethnographic standpoint, we identified two sets of emotional activities: the first, which we named emergent emotional activities, respond to unforeseen and unpostponable demands from their students, that teachers must immediately resolve in order for them to continue their work. Secondly, we describe bonding emotional activities that allow teachers to know and build a relationship with their students. In third place, we describe the implications that these emotional activities have on teachers, in terms of their complexity, the work and time invested, and the weariness it produces. Further, we discuss that these activities are varied, contextualized and indispensable for teachers’ work, in spite of being unrecognized in regulations based on accountability.