The role of emotions in student teachers’ professional identity

2012/03/02 by Inge Timoštšuk, Aino Ugaste · 3 citations
Social Sciences · #Early Childhood Education and Development #Innovative Education and Learning Practices #Teacher Education and Leadership Studies

paper · doi:10.1080/02619768.2012.662637

openalex publication_date 2012/03/02 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29

Abstract

This paper presents findings of a qualitative interview study of the role of emotions in the professional identity of student teachers. Strong positive and negative emotions (mostly related to pupils and supervisors) were expressed about personal teaching experiences. The results confirm that emotions play an important role in social learning and, therefore, influence the development of professional identity. The two most important findings were that negative emotions exercised the strongest influence and that supervisors neglected the role of positive emotions as a support for learning. The study supports the concept that it is important for teacher educators to help student teachers understand their emotional experiences (focusing foremost on positive factors in their experience) and to develop the ability to express their own emotions in addition to understanding the emotions of others.

Citations

• Teachers’ emotions in educational reforms: Self-understanding, vulnerable commitment and micropolitical literacy
• Student‐teachers' concerns about teaching practice

Cited by

• Student Teachers’ Emotions, Dilemmas, and Professional Identity Formation Amid the Teaching Practicums
• Vulnerability as an Emotional Dimension in Student Teachers’ Narrative Identities Told With Self-Portraits
• Becoming a safe adult for pupils: emotions as part of first-year student teachers’ narrative identities told with photographs

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• Teachers’ daily positive and negative affect and their relationship with teachers’ emotion regulation strategies and daily work engagement – results of a diary study among team teachers
• Teachers’ emotional experiences: towards a new emotional discourse
• Understanding teacher identity: an overview of issues in the literature and implications for teacher education