Be passionate, but be rational as well: Emotional rules for Chinese teachers’ work.

This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attachedcopy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial researchand education use, including for instruction at the authors institution

and sharing with colleagues.

Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling orlicensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party

websites are prohibited.

In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of thearticle (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website orinstitutional repository. Authors requiring further information

regarding Elsevier’s archiving and manuscript policies areencouraged to visit:

http://www.elsevier.com/copyright

http://www.elsevier.com/copyright

Author's personal copy

Be passionate, but be rational as well: Emotional rules for Chinese teachers’ work

Hong-biao Yin a,*, John Chi-Kin Lee b

aDepartment of Curriculum and Instruction, Faculty of Education, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin, N.T., Hong Kong SAR, ChinabDepartment of Curriculum and Instruction, Faculty of Education Studies, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Lo Ping Road, Tai Po, N.T., Hong Kong SAR, China

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:Received 21 February 2011Received in revised form13 August 2011Accepted 16 August 2011

Keywords:EmotionEmotional labourEmotional rulesTeacherMainland China

a b s t r a c t

Employing the concepts of emotional labour and emotional rules, the present study explored theemotional rules governing teachers’ work in the context of Mainland China. This showed that teacherscan be seen as emotional workers in teaching and there are four emotional rules for Chinese teachers’feelings and emotional expressions. For Chinese teachers, teaching contains a salient component of“heart-consuming” labour (caoxin). They rationally instrumentalise their emotional experience andexpression to follow the professional and ethical norms in teaching. Because of this, the nature ofteachers’ emotional labour and emotional rules in the context of Chinese culture is discussed.

� 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Since the mid-1990s, research into teacher emotion has beenincreasingly central to the research into teaching (Day, 2004;Hargreaves, 1998; Nias, 1996; Zembylas, 2004), teacher identity(Day & Kington, 2008; Zembylas, 2003), teacher development(Kelchtermans, 1996; Scott & Sutton, 2009), and teacher education(Day & Leitch, 2001; Meyer, 2009). One of the results of theincreased research into teacher emotion is the recognition of therelevance of emotional labour and emotional rules in a teachers’work. As Day and Gu (2009) pointed out, one truth about teachers’emotional worlds is that teachers’ observed behaviour, oremotional expressions, may mask their feelings. In nature, theeffort that teachers pay to fake or “paint on” (Hochschild, 1983,p. 33) affective displays reflects teachers’ emotional labour whichassociates with student learning and school effectiveness as well asteachers’ job satisfaction, health symptoms and burnout. As such,research into emotional labour in teaching is becoming more andmore imperative today (Schutz & Zembylas, 2009).

In this study, emotional labour, a term coined by the sociologistArlie Hochschild (1983), is primarily defined as the process, appliedin the context of teaching, in which teachers make an effort toinhibit, generate, and manage their feeling and expression of

emotions according to the normative beliefs and expectations heldabout the teaching profession (Hochschild, 1983; Wharton, 2009;Winograd, 2003). These normative beliefs and expectations,usually constructed collectively and organisationally, define theemotional rules for teachers’ work, also reflecting “the side ofideology that deals with emotion and feeling” in teaching(Hochschild, 1979, p. 551). Schools are complex emotional arenaswhere teachers are constantly assailed and regulated by theemotional demands placed on them by their peers, students,leaders, and parents (Sachs & Blackmore, 1998). To cope with theseemotional demands, teachers are required to do emotional labourfor both the successful delivery of teaching and smooth interactionwith people around them, following the social expectations ofteachers about the way of feeling and expressing emotions.

Recently, teachers’ emotional labour has attained a remarkableamount of attention from educational researchers. These studiesshow that the performance of emotional labour is related toteachers’ understanding about the role of caring in teaching andlearning (Isenbarger & Zembylas, 2006), the culture of the teachingprofession (Oplatka, 2007), and their perceptions of professionalidentity (Lee & Yin, 2011; O’Connor, 2008). Power relations areinherent in the emotional rules for teachers which permit them tofeel or express some emotions while prohibiting others (Zembylas,2002, 2005), but the self-accusatory stance of teachers diverts theirattention from structural problems and power relations in theirworking conditions (Winograd, 2003). Meanwhile, these emotionalrules have developed and come to partially define the teacher selfin tandem with three overlapping discourses, i.e., the teacher as

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ86 852 3943 1213.E-mail addresses: [email protected] (H.-b. Yin),

[email protected] (J. C.-K. Lee).

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Teaching and Teacher Education

journal homepage: www.elsevier .com/locate/ tate

0742-051X/$ e see front matter � 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.tate.2011.08.005

Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 56e65


moral agent, expert and purveyor of social efficiency (Kitching,2009). Teachers’ emotional labour and emotional rules thusreflect the socio-structural constraints on teachers’ role as well asthe agency in constructing their professional self and identity.Failure to understand teachers’ emotional labour and emotionalrules may lead to incomplete understanding of the nature ofteachers’ work and their purpose in, struggles with, and commit-ment to the teaching profession.

As Yik (2010) mentioned, both those seeking the universalaspects of emotion and those seeking cultural differences inemotion often turn to China for evidence because of its culturalspecificities. However, with but few exceptions (e.g., Lee & Yin,2011; Yin & Lee, 2011; Zhang & Zhu, 2008), most studies onteacher emotion have been conducted in western countries, andthere is a dearth of research on teachers’ emotional labour inChinese societies. Therefore, employing the concepts of emotionallabour and emotional rules as the basis for analysis, the presentstudy attempts to address this omission by exploring the emotionalrules governing teachers’ work in the context of Mainland China.Based on this analysis, the nature of teachers’ emotional labour andemotional rules in a Chinese cultural context is discussed.

2. Literature

2.1. The significance of emotion for teaching and teachers

There are now a considerable number of studies which focus onthe role of emotion in teaching and teachers’ lives. Rather thantaking emotion as a peripheral part of teaching, researchers onteacher emotion have reached a consensus that emotion is at theheart of teaching and learning (Day & Leitch, 2001; Hargreaves,1998; Nias, 1996; Zembylas, 2003). In the special issue of theCambridge Journal of Education on teacher emotion e which partlyled to the rise of the recent wave of research on emotion ineducation, Nias (1996) summarised three reasons for the funda-mental importance of emotion for teaching and teachers. First,teaching is a job which involves interaction among people andinevitably has an emotional dimension. Second, teachers investtheir energy and emotion in their own work, often merging theirsense of personal and professional identities so that the classroomsand schools become a main site both for their fulfilment and theirvulnerability. Third, teachers have profound feelings about teachingbecause they invest heavily in it with their values, ethics and moralpurposes. These reasons form the three lines of research which areclearly reflected in the recent studies on teacher emotion.

The first reason suggested by Nias (1996) has been explored invery great depth in the “emotional geographies of teaching” sug-gested by Hargreaves (2000, 2001a, b). In order to illustrate theimpact of human relationships and interactions on the emotionalunderstanding between teachers and others in teaching,Hargreaves (2001a) defined the term “emotional geographies” as“the spatial and experiential patterns of closeness and/or distancein human interactions and relationships that help create, configureand colour the feelings and emotions we experience aboutourselves, our world and each other” (p. 1061). Using this concep-tual framework, he conducted a series of studies to analyse theemotional interactions between teachers and students (Hargreaves,2000), colleagues (Hargreaves, 2001b) and parents (Hargreaves,2001a). Recently, Yin and Lee (2011) also used this framework toexplore the emotional interactions between teachers and teachertrainers in a national curriculum reform in China. They found thatthe framework of emotional geographies is helpful to investigatethe social factors impacting teacher emotion, and they highlightedthe interrelations of different emotional geographies and theircomprehensive impact on teachers’ feelings.

Following the second research line, recent studies reveal thatthere are intimate and intricate relationships among teachers’emotion, vulnerability and their identities. Teacher identity,well-being and effectiveness constitute the emotional contexts ofteaching. Instabilities in school settings, whether of a personal,professional or situational nature or a combination of these, cancreate stresses in the emotional fabric of teacher identity (Day & Gu,2009; Day & Kington, 2008). Zembylas (2003) argued that emotionand identity transformation are inextricably linked, informing eachother and re-defining interpretations of each other, becauseemotions act as the glue of identity by connecting people’sthoughts, judgements and beliefs and giving meaning to humanexperiences. Because of teachers’ emotional investments inteaching, their professional identity and feelings of vulnerabilitycan be easily influenced by policy changes, new expectations forstandards, and imposed reform agendas (Kelchtermans, 2005;Lasky, 2005). Lee and Yin’s (2011) recent study on teacheremotion and professional identity showed that teachers revealedcomplex emotional responses to the coming of a national curric-ulum reform. Three types of teachers with different emotions andprofessional identities were identified during the implementationprocess, namely, “the losing heart accommodators”, “the driftingfollowers” and “the cynical performers”.

Studies following the third research line usually emphasize thelinkages between emotion and teachers’ moral and ethicalpurposes and the caring ethics of the teaching profession. Forexample, Kelchtermans (1996) argued that research into teacheremotion should address the personal identities andmoral purposesof teachers, as well as the cultures and contexts inwhich theywork,because teacher emotion is unavoidably linked to matters ofinterests (political dimension) and values (moral dimension).Zembylas (2006) explored the meaning of affect and its importanceto educational efforts to create the classroom conditions necessaryfor students and teachers to be effective, and drew out some of theethical and political possibilities that emerge through such efforts.Niesche and Haase’ (2010) study showed the active connectionbetween teacher emotion and personal ethical position bydemonstrating how a teacher and a principal cultivate their ethicalselves through a range of self-reflective practices that are deeplyconnected to their emotions. Moreover, O’Connor (2008) remindedus that although teachers’ work is emotionally engaging becausethe caring ethics of teaching may be a source of teacher satisfactionas well as anxiety and emotional strain, the caring nature of theteaching profession is largely neglected in educational policy anddefinitions of teacher standards. Hence, individual teachers have tosubjectively negotiate the demands created by policy and differ-ently situated contexts.

All of the studies mentioned above show the emotional signif-icance of teaching and teachers’ lives. Teaching is by no meanssimply a rational world which consists of knowledge, cognition,skills and reflection, rather, as Day (2004) remarked, it is aboutteachers’ emotion, enthusiasm and passion.

2.2. Emotional labour, emotional rules and teachers’ work

In Hochschild’s (1983) definition, emotional labour refers to “themanagement of feeling to create a publicly observable facial andbodily display” (p. 7). Though it is initially used to describe thenature of work conducted by lower level shop-floor employees orthose in the service sector, such as flight attendants, bill collectors,and clerical workers, it has now been extensively applied to theexamination of some expert service workers or higher-levelprofessional groups, e.g., lawyers, doctors, and personal trainers(George, 2008; Wharton, 2009). Generally, emotional labour can beseen as “the process by which workers are expected to manage

H.-b. Yin, J.C.-K. Lee / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 56e65 57


their feelings in accordancewith organizationally defined rules andguidelines” (Wharton, 2009, p. 147).

In recent years, teachers’ emotional labour has attracted moreand more attention from researchers e both the emotional labourcarried out by primary or secondary teachers (e.g., Oplatka, 2007;Winograd, 2003; Zembylas, 2004) and university lecturers (e.g.,Constanti & Gibbs, 2004; Ogbonna &Harris, 2004). There are at leastthree reasons for the applicability of emotional labour to teachers’work. First, as Winograd (2003) pointed out, teaching fulfils all thethree criteria suggested by Hochschild (1983) for work that requiresemotion labour: (a) teaching requires face-to-face contact betweenteachers and others, especially their students; (b) teaching requiresteachers to produce some emotional state (e.g., joy or fear, excite-ment or anxiety) in their students or other people around them; and(c) there is a degree of external control over teachers’ emotionallabour in classroom or school settings, which usually comes in theform of cultural expectations or professional norms.

Second, teaching is an emotional practice and entails emotionalunderstanding between teachers and students (Hargreaves, 1998,2001a; Meyer, 2009). As an emotional practice, teaching activatesand expresses teachers’ own feelings and the actions inwhich thosefeelings are embedded, at the same time, teaching also affects thefeelings and actions of others with whom teachers work and formrelationships (Hargreaves, 1998, 2001a). More importantly, theemotional understanding between teachers and their studentsrequires them to enter into the field of experience of their studentsand to empathically experience the same or similar feelings of theirstudents. Therefore, teachers have to manage their emotions tocreate better conditions for emotional understanding.

Third, teachers’ emotional labour is often integrated into thediscussion of the caring ethics of teaching. Partly overlapped withthe third criterion for work that requires emotional labour, the ethicof care is an important element of the professional norms forteachers’ work (Noddings, 1996; O’Connor, 2008). A caring teacherhas to invest most of his/her care, love, and other positive emotionsin students and teaching, as well as to continuously improve his/herprofessional capability because “in a fundamental, essential way,caring implies a quest for competence” (Noddings, 1996, p. 163).Isenbarger and Zembylas’s (2006) study showed that the teacher’sperformance of emotional labour which has an impact on hercommitment, satisfaction and self-esteem is closely related to herprofessional and philosophical stance about the role of caring inteaching and learning.

However, because Hochschild (1983) mainly focuses on theexploitative aspect of emotional labour, many researchers also notethat the term “emotional labour”may not be completely applicableto teaching since it ignores the rewarding aspect of teachers’ effortsfor emotional management (e.g., Hargreaves, 1998; Meyer, 2009;Oplatka, 2007; Winograd, 2003; Zembylas, 2004). For example,through a 3-year ethnographical study of a primary scienceteacher’s classroom experiences, Zembylas (2004) distinguishedtwo dimensions in teachers’ emotional labour, one positive and onenegative. Although emotional labour is difficult and has painfulrepercussions, sometimes it can be rewarding, bywhich the teacherenjoyed emotional labour and even sought it out. Based on theanalysis of Israeli teachers, Oplatka (2007) found that although theethic of care makes lots of requirement on teachers’ emotionaldisplay in the classroom, teachers’ emotion management isa discretionary, voluntary-based role element rather thana prescribed one, and caring is a non-prescribed element ofteachers’ role expectation. Therefore, Oplatka (2007) suggestedthat emotional work, “a state in which the individual is autono-mous in managing his or her emotions in the workplace’ ratherthan forced or paid for doing so” (p. 1378), is more suitable fordescribing teachers’ emotion management.

Regardless of whether it is autonomous or enforced, exploitativeor rewarding, teachers need to put a lot of effort into management oftheir feeling and emotional display in the classroom.Moreover, theseefforts need to conform to the regulation of emotional rules.Emotional rules, or feeling rules in Hochschild’s (1983) account,define “what guide emotion work by establishing the sense of enti-tlement or obligation that governs emotional exchanges” (p. 56). Bynature, emotional rules reflect the cultural expectations, social stan-dards, or professional norms which lead and direct teachers’emotional labour either in the form of internalised self-regulation orexternal control. In an analysis of emotional rules in teaching,Zembylas (2002) found that like other rules, emotional rules reflectpower relations anddelineated a zonewithinwhich certain emotionsare permitted and others are not permitted, inscribing “appropriate”and “inappropriate” feelings and classifying emotional expressions as“deviant” or “normal”. These rules, governing the legitimate expres-sions of negative emotion in school, become implicit and often serveto reify “teacherhood”, keeping certain “truths” about the teacherundisturbed (Kitching, 2009). Furthermore, emotional rules inteaching are historically contingent. That is, changes in emotionalexpressions and ideals reflect changes in thepower relationswhereinthey are rooted (Zembylas, 2005).

Comparedwith the rich literature on teachers’ emotional labour,the empirical studies which summarise the emotional rules gov-erning teachers’ work are surprisingly limited. There are also a fewexceptional cases. For example, Kitching’s (2009) study of Irishprimary teachers’ expression of negative emotions found thata pervasive emotional rule of teaching is “boredom is not allowed”(p. 150), and teachers have to be acceptable and accepted. Througha 1-year self-study, Winograd (2003) summarised five feeling rulesfor teacher’s work, including (a) teachers have affection and evenlove of their students; (b) teachers have enthusiasm or evenpassion for subject matter, and teachers show enthusiasm forstudents; (c) teachers avoid overt displays of extreme emotions,especially anger and other darker emotions; (d) teachers love theirwork; and (e) teachers have a sense of humour for their ownmistakes as well as the errors of students.

2.3. Emotion and culture

From a social interactionist perspective, emotion is more likea socio-cultural construction than a private psychological process,though it does have some biological and psychological foundations(Winograd, 2003; Zembylas, 2007), because “the social matrixdetermines which emotions are likely to be experienced when andwhere, on what grounds and for what reasons, by what modes ofexpression, [and] by whom” (Kemper, 1993, pp. 41e42). For thisreason, Hochschild (1990) defined emotion as an awareness of fourelements usually experienced at the same time: appraisal ofa situation, changes in bodily sensations, the free or inhibiteddisplay of expressive gestures, and a cultural label applied tospecific constellations of the first three elements.

Results of empirical studies have provided the evidence of culturalinfluences on the perception, recognition and expression of emotion.For example, Elfenbein and Ambady’s (2002) meta-analysis showedthat the accuracyof emotion recognition ishigherwhenemotions areboth expressed and recognised by members of the same national,ethnic, or regional group, suggesting an in-group or in-cultureadvantage. Markus and Kitayama (1991) observed that people withindependent selves tend to express or reveal inner feelings as theautonomous expression of internal attributes, whereas those withinterdependent selves view emotional expression as a means tomaintain interpersonal harmony rather than true reflection ofpersonal feelings. In a comparative study on the perception of facialemotion, Masuda and his colleagues (Masuda et al., 2008) found that

H.-b. Yin, J.C.-K. Lee / Teaching and Teacher Education 28 (2012) 56e6558


the emotions of surrounding people influence Japanese but notWesterners’ perceptions of the central person’s facial emotion, sug-gesting thatWesterners see emotions as individual feelings, whereasJapanese see them as inseparable from the feelings of the group.These studies highlight the significance of exploring teacher emotionin various cultural contexts.

In the area of cross-cultural study, Hofstede (1991) identifiedfive dimensions to define and differentiate various cultures: powerdistance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism versus collectivism,masculinity versus femininity, and Confucian dynamics. It wassuggested that the “Chineseness” of Chinese culture lay in itsrelatively high power distance, high collectivism, risk-avoiding,medium femininity, and high Confucian dynamics (Hofstede,1991; Hofstede & Bond, 1988). These cultural characteristics influ-ence the emotional experience and expression of the Chinese. Forexample, Matsumoto (1989) found that cultures high in powerdistance and low in individualism (e.g., Chinese and Japaneseculture) stress hierarchy and group cohesion. In these cultures, thecommunication of negative emotions is seen as a threat to groupsolidarity and interpersonal social structure. In Lee and Yin’s (2011)study on Chinese teachers’ emotions in a national curriculumreform, they found that the teachers studied considered thatexpressing inner feelings is relatively unimportant to the relationaldevelopment and reform implementation, and they tended to becareful in controlling their emotions and behaviours as well asbeing obedient to the reform policy. This reflected the hierarchicalrelationships and collectivist culture in Chinese organisations andschools.

Although little is known about Chinese teachers’ emotionallabour, it should be noted that Zhang and Zhu (2008) recentlyexamined the dimensions of emotional labour and its impact onChinese college instructors’ job satisfaction and burnout, usinga quantitative questionnaire survey method. Nonetheless, there isa dearth of in-depth analysis on the emotional labour andemotional rules for teachers’ work in Chinese societies.

In short, most studies on teachers’ emotional labour andemotional rules are conducted in the cultural contexts of the West.There is a paucity of such research in the Chinese societies reportedin the international literature. The present study attempts toaddress this issue by exploring the following key question: Whatare the emotional rules governing teachers’ work in the context ofMainland China? In order to answer this question, two specificresearch questions will be investigated: (1)What is the relevance ofemotions in Chinese teachers’ work? (2) What are the normativebeliefs that Chinese teachers have on emotions in their work?

3. Methodology

3.1. Teaching and teachers in China

In Chinese societies like Mainland China and Taiwan, teachersusually enjoy more favourable social status and occupationalprestige than their international counterparts (Fwu & Wang, 2002;X. Gao, 2008). Teacher authority, teacher-centred pedagogy, andstudent compliance are still prevalent in Chinese classrooms (Ho,2001). In Aguinis and Roth’s (2003) cross-cultural study, theysuggested that students in China, comparedwith their counterpartsin the U.S., are more likely to accept teachers’ instructions withoutquestion and less likely to express their opinions, beliefs and feel-ings. Even in Hong Kong, often seen as a place of Ease-West fusion,“teacher-centredness” is still a salient characteristic of the class-room environment (Lee, Yin, & Zhang, 2009).

Teachers in Mainland China usually work in classroomsfeaturing an emphasis on academic success and a large class size(50 students or more), resulting in high competitive pressure.

Moreover, influenced by the Confucian tradition, the commonbeliefs about the nature of teaching and learning held by Chineseteachers include ideas such as “no pain, no gain”, “failure is theresult of laziness”, and “children are spoiled if praised”. All of theseseemingly imply a harsh emotional climate and run counter to theoptimal learning environment suggested by the Western theories(Watkins & Biggs, 2001). However, this impression of the Chineseclassroom environment is sometimes not in line with the results ofempirical studies. For example, Ho (2001) found that the teacher-student interaction in Chinese classrooms is more frequent andharmonious. Comparing students’ perceptions of the classroomdiscipline strategies in China, Australia and Israel, Lewis and hiscolleagues (Lewis, Romi, Qui, & Katz, 2005) also found that Chineseteachers, in general, appear less punitive and aggressive than dothose in Israel and Australia, and more inclusive and supportive ofstudents’ voices.

3.2. Site and participants

This study is based on a three-year qualitative project(2005e2008) on teacher emotion in Guangzhou, the provincial cityof Guangdong province in the southern part of Mainland China. Inthis project, we seek to explore teachers’ emotions and perceptionsof their behaviour in professional practices, including their dailyclassroom teaching and the implementation of curriculum reforminitiatives in their schools.

The methodology of “embedded case study” was employed, inwhich both schools and teachers were considered as units ofanalysis (Scholz & Tietje, 2002). In Guangzhou, all senior secondaryschools were classified into five levels according to their students’academic achievements in the enrolment examination. In order todetect information about teachers’ emotions in schools withdifferent academic background, we selected four schools whichwere in upper, middle and lower levels. There were two keysecondary schools in Guangzhou in our sample, one of which is, inparents’ perceptions, the “top” school famous for its results inannual college entrance examinations. In each school, one schooladministrator with responsibility for teaching matters and severalteachers with different gender, subject, and teaching experiencewere investigated. As a result, from the four schools a total of fouradministrators and 25 teachers with different background partici-pated in the present study. Table 1 summarises background infor-mation of the school and teacher participants.

3.3. Data collection and analysis

Semi-structured interview and document collection wereemployed to collect the data. Each interview, conducted in a privatespace within each school, lasted at least 1 h and concentrated oneliciting teachers’ conversation about the role that emotion plays intheir teaching and professional practices, the coping strategies they

Table 1Background information of the informants.

School School background Informants involved

Key School Level School personnel Subjectteachers

S1 Yes Level 1(The top)

One teaching affairs director Six

S2 No Level 2e3 One grade master teacherin charge of the whole gradeteaching affairs

Seven

S3 Yes Level 1 One teaching affairs director SevenS4 No Level 4 One teaching affairs director Five



used, and their opinions on the “appropriate” feelings or expres-sions of teacher emotion. The main interview questions included:

� Do you think emotion has an important impact on youclassroom teaching? Why or why not?

� What do you do to eliminate (or enhance) the influence ofemotion on your teaching?

� What teacher emotions should (or should not) be expressed orfelt?

Teachers’ self reflection journals, the documents issued by theschool and the researchers’ field notes were the documentscollected for data analysis.

All interviews were transcribed and analysed inductively. Theoverall analytic process was an ongoing cyclical process in whichcategories and patterns emerged from the data and were latercross-checked (Miles & Huberman, 1994). During the data analysisprocess, NVivo software was used to classify and cluster the data.The refined coding system about teachers’ emotional rules finalisedin the present study is shown in the appendix.

Methods were adopted to ensure the trustworthiness and reli-ability of the data analysis. When the transcription of teacherinterviews was finished, all transcriptions were sent back to therelative informant for cross check. Revisions were made when theinformants had any doubts about the content of the transcription.The techniques of data triangulation and methodological triangu-lation were used during the process of data collection (Denzin,1989). To be specific, for data triangulation, the information aboutteachers’ emotional experiences was achieved through multipleinterviews with different teachers; for methodological triangula-tion, the data drawn from teacher interview and documentcollection was compared and examined twice to get reliableinformation about teachers’ opinions.

4. Emotional rules governing Chinese teachers’ work

The inductive process of data analysis resulted in the generationof four emotional rules governing Chinese teachers’ emotions intheir professional practices. These rules will be explored one by onein the following sections.

4.1. Rule 1: commit to teaching with passion

“Passion” is one of the terms most frequently mentioned by ourinformants. In their words, teachers must be passionate aboutteaching. What the teachers mean by “passion” is an intenseemotional commitment that teachers invest in their work, which isalso a salient characteristic that distinguishes the teaching profes-sion from other jobs (Nias, 1996). Specifically, being passionaterequires teachers to strongly commit their emotion to their class-room teaching, improvement of their competence by doingteaching inquiry, and the establishment of a caring relationshipbetween them and their students. Therefore, “commit to teachingwith passion” becomes a paramount emotional rule for teaching. Inthe views of our informants, the emotion that teachers commit totheir work can lead to a joyful experience, because “passion givesbirth to inspiration and happiness”.

First, we ought to have passion. As a teacher, we fail withoutpassion.Having passion includes having passion in the class-room teaching, having passion to make teaching inquiry, havingpassion to treat students. (Interview-School 1-Femal teacher-4)I often remind myself to carry passion into the classroombecause passion gives birth to inspiration and happiness.Without passion, it will be easy for us to generate a sentiment

against teaching. My spirit of education is to have passiontowards education, caring about students and have confidencein ourselves. (Document-School 3-Male teacher-4)

For teachers, commitment to teaching with passion plays a dualrole in their work. One role is related to teachers’ professionalcompetence. The intense emotional commitment provides teacherswith thedrive for theunceasingenhancementof their teaching ability,and improves the quality of enactment of classroom teaching. Theother is related to teachers’ moral responsibility. The intenseemotional commitment in treating students requires teachers to “putstudentsfirst”, reflecting the caring ethic of the teaching profession. InMainland China, having both professional ability and moral integrity(de cai jian bei) is seen as a prerequisite of being a good educator (Gu,2009). The findings of the current study show that these two aspectsare closely interrelated. Through teachers’ emotional commitment totheirwork, it canbe seen that teachers’moral responsibility goes handin hand with the improvement of their professional competence.

Having passion has a connection with the personal quality ofa teacher. If a teacher is passionate but without “abilities”, his/her passion will have limitation. His/her control of the class-room, his/her management capability and his/her professionalcompetence are reflected in his/her passion. (Interview-School4-Female teacher-1)It is a responsibility for a teacher to put students at the first place.As a teacher, he/she should pursue the ideal of excelling thepredecessors [students surpassing the teacher]. Student growthis of paramount importance and should not be subservient toteachers’ feelings. (Interview-School 2-Female teacher-2)

4.2. Rule 2: hide negative emotions

Paradoxically, the informants of the present study mentionedthat teachers have to be careful about “emotion” in teaching,though they all agreed that emotion plays an important role ina teacher’s work. That is because in their daily conversations,“emotion” is a word with negative connotations rather thanneutral. In many cases, “emotion” refers to negative or unhappyfeelings. The following example with the contrasting meanings ofemotion illustrates this:

Teachers’ emotions have [negative] consequences for classroomteaching. A teacher should not bring any emotion to thestudents in class except having smiles and feeling happy.(Interview-School 1-Male teacher-4)

Obviously, “having smiles” and “feeling happy” are not theelements of “being emotional” in this excerpt, which shows theconnotations by the teacher of the word “emotion” e emotion isdangerous and it may hinder teachers’ work.

In order to avoid the possible disturbing effect that “emotion”couldhaveonclassroomteaching andstudent learning, teachershaveto keep their emotional expressions under control. To be concrete,they must hide or suppress their negative emotions in teaching,which is another rule for Chinese teachers. This is consistent withMatsumoto’s (1989) observation that the communication of negativeemotions is usually seen as a threat in East Asian cultures.

I feel that this is a professional problem. As a mature teacher,however much you feel disturbed, you have to minimise its[negative] impact. You won’t bring your worries to the class-room.because it is your profession. (Interview-School 4-Maleteacher-2)There must be some unhappy things but I normally won’t bringthis kind of emotion to the students. (Notes-School 4-Femaleteacher-1)



Moreover, hiding the “emotion” (i.e., negative emotion) tocontrol it and its impact, is also one of the professional require-ments of teachers’ work. Here, the emotional rules in teaching arepartly interwoven with the professional discourse dominatingteachers’ work.

I am sure I will not bring my own [negative] emotions to theclassroom. This is a professional requirement. (Interview-School3-Male teacher-2)

4.3. Rule 3: maintain positive emotions

The third emotional rule is a complement of the second.Excluding the impact of negative emotions is one side of the coin.On the other side, teachers have to maintain positive emotions tomotivate students. They must do so even if they do not feelsuch positive emotions, because “making students happy inlearning” is not only a consensus among teachers, but also theprincipal’s known requirement regarding teachers’ emotionalexpressions.

Our principal often talks to us, “When a teacher has a class, evenif you are in pain, you have to smile to the students, givestudents a smile when you stand up on the speaker’s platform”.No matter how complicated you feel at heart and no matterwhat [has happened], you have to show a smiling face to thestudents so that they have a good mood and can learn withhappiness. (Interview-School 1-Male teacher-3)

This principal’s advice echoes the third criterion for work thatrequires emotional labour. That is, employees’ emotional activitiesare under the regulation of some external control (Hochschild,1983). To make students happy and relaxed in learning, teachersmust maintain positive emotions as well as suppress thesenegative ones. As a teacher said, teachers when teaching on theplatform may be very different people from the person they areout of the class, because they have to give students a positiveimpression.

Even if you are under pressure, you cannot talk to the students:“Ah, I am under a lot of pressure! I feel exhausted!” It is notpermitted. You have to give students an impression of beingpositive and aspirational. In my classes, I tend to make studentslearn in a relaxed manner.It is what we teachers should do.(Interview-School 1-Male teacher-4)

Teachers in the present study recognised that students’emotional status could also have an impact on their own emotionswhen teaching, just as a teacher’s emotions influence students.They emphasised that as teachers, they need to keep somedistance from their students in case they are overly impacted bystudents’ negative emotions. They can only share the positiveemotions with students.

If we say we are affected by students and we feel happy whenstudents are happy, that’s fine. If they are not happy, you shouldnot feel the same way. So a teacher has to be independent. Youshould understand that you should try to give them happiness,regardless of your emotions and their performance.and shouldnot make each other unhappy because of small things. (Inter-view-School 2-Female teacher-2)

4.4. Rule 4: instrumentalise emotions to achieve teaching goals

For the informants of this study, emotion has the functions ofmotivating students and enhancing the effectiveness of teaching.In their teaching, they often used some skills or strategiesrelated to emotional expressions, such as the rhythm of speech,

humour or jokes, exaggerated face or gesture, to attract students’attention. The emotional labour done by these teachersusually helped the teaching process go more smoothly andeffectively. Therefore, instrumentalising emotions to achieveteaching goals is another rule for teachers’ emotional expressionsin their work.

When you teach this lesson, you ought to be sentient or showyour heart.Why do some teachers teach better for the samelesson? An important mediating factor is his/her emotion inclass. His/her voice sometimes is high and sometimes is lowwith some emotions inside. Sometimes, when students arehappy, he/she feels happy; sometimes when students laugh, he/she doesn’t laugh. He/she will move students. The voice, toneand emotion of a teacher in a lesson [have such influence]. If youdon’t have such attributes and speak drily straightforward,students will feel bored and will not follow you to learn.(Interview-School 1-Female teacher-2)

Furthermore, instrumentalising emotions is far more importantthan these presentation skills or tricks. A “professional” teacherknows how to match their emotional expressions with the contentof teaching and the structure of teaching process. For example, theynot only know when to display their emotions when teaching andhow to create an emotional climate suitable for the text, but alsowhen to withdraw from the emotional climate created bythemselves.

Your emotion better matches with the composition so as tobring students to that mood. For example if the compositioncarries gentle sadness, you should lower and slow down thevoice so that students could have that mood of grief.We candevote ourselves to it but detach or jump out at the rightmoment. (Interview-School 4-Female teacher-3)

In some teachers’ eyes, the ability to instrumentalise emotionsreflects the “level” of teachers’ professional competence, and thisability also develops with increased teaching experience. Thenovice, “low-level” teachers might be often driven by theiremotions, but in contrast, the experienced, “high-level” teacherscan make full use of both the positive emotions and the seeminglyradical, dark emotions, such as anxiety and anger. A teachermentioned an example of using anger to teach students in class-rooms. In this example, the ability to make use of anger, a kind ofdark emotion, distinguished the high-level teachers from thoselow-level ones. However, considering the limited number ofparticipants, it is difficult to make this assertion in the presentstudy. However, this finding opens a new possibility worthy ofresearch in future.

A low-level teacher often does not manage emotions wellwhile a high-level teacher has good self-control. For beingangry, a high-level teacher makes good use of anger.Using anexample, if a student does not submit his/her assignment,a low-level teacher will have his/her blood boiling and burningwith righteous indignation immediately and start scolding thestudent. For a high-level teacher, he/she will think: “Ah, whena student does not submit assignment, I will take this chance toscold the student!”.While a high-level teacher superficiallyscolds the student with great eloquence, he/she does not feelangry at heart. Why? He/she is not angry because of students.Why does he appear to be angry in class? He makes use ofanger to tell students: He cares about the situation and hewants students to do things properly.This is a kind of culti-vation and a level. So a teacher has to make use of emotion andshould not be manipulated by emotion. (Interview-School 3-Male teacher-4)



5. Chinese teachers’ understanding of emotional labour andemotional rules

5.1. Teaching as a “heart-consuming” labour (caoxin) and teacheras “mother”

The findings of the present study highlight the relevance ofemotion in teachers’work and suggest that emotion is a core ratherthan peripheral part of teaching. As Hargreaves (1998) suggested,good teachers are emotional, passionate beings rather thanwell-oiledmachines. Teachers have to fill their professional practicewith various emotions, regardless of authenticity, to follow the rulesfor teacher emotion and fulfil some particular functions. Therefore,mobilising, maintaining and controlling the experience andexpression of emotion is an integral part of teachers’ work,demanding teachers put a lot of effort intomanaging their emotions.

Due to the close relationship between emotion and teachers’work, our informants often use “communication between hearts”or “a job about people” to describe their work. In a teacher’s words,“the most important thing for a teacher is to teach with his/herheart at all times” (Interview-School 3-Female administrator). Theynote that teachers’ work is very laborious because besides physicaland mental labour, teaching also contains a kind of labour whichrequires teachers to “consume their hearts”. That is, teachers needto devote themselves to their work body and soul, combining boththe feelings and emotions required by the teaching profession. Thecomponent of “heart-consuming” labour (caoxin) reflects theseChinese teachers’ definition of emotional labour in teaching.

Teaching is a tragic job! Many people think teaching is lightworke all teachers need to do is only to give two or three lessonsa day. But in reality, the time that teachers spend on their work isfar more than 8 hs. Even if you are off duty, you have to worryabout the students if their parents call youwith some troubles. It isa job about people! . Teachers’ work is very labourious. You dobothphysical andmental laboureveryday. In addition, youhave toconsume your heart! (Interview-School 2-Male teacher-2)

Always being emotional and passionate is not easy for teachers.This “heart-consuming” labour indicates the heavy burden imposedon teacher emotion too. In their views, this “heart-consuming”labour is what the parents should do for their children. Therefore,many teachers, especially the female teachers, like to comparethemselves to another “mother” of the students:

I reallyworryabout the students for their parents.Whycannot thestudents learnwell? But you cannot resolve all theproblemsof thestudents. The heart you consume for the students may lead tonothing! So, the only thing you can do is to share pains with theirparents together. Maybe I am too emotionale sometimes I think:“Ah, I am themother of the students aswell asmyown son! I haveto share the unhappiness of my students.” (Interview-School4-Female teacher-2)

The “heart-consuming” labour causes the teacher to considerherself as the mother of her students. This comparison also reflectsthe caringethicsof the teachingprofession. Similarlywith theparentsof the students, teachers care about the learning performance andemotional status of the students from the bottom of their hearts,which increase the vulnerability of teachers’ work. Just as the maleteacher mentioned above, therefore, teaching may become “a tragicjob”when teachers consume theirheartmore than they can afford to.

5.2. Rationality embedded in the emotional rules

Interestingly, the four emotional rules summarised in this study,though all about teachers’ emotions, also illustrate that in teachers’

professional practice, the experience and expression of emotion arenot only emotionalmatters but also results of rational operation. Thismeans when teachers feel or express their emotions in some specificways, they always calculate the cost and benefit of these emotionsaccording to the situations, the norms for teaching, and the potentialconsequences of their emotional expressions. Committing to teachingwith passion, controlling emotions by concealment or maintenance,and purposefully instrumentalising emotions, all imply teachers’rational operation of their own emotions. In the interviews, a teachermentioned an example of deciding how to admonish students in thestaff room which obviously presents the linkage between rationaloperation and teacher emotion:

I have to pay attention to my criticism of a student in the office.Others have to listen to [and judge] my level of scolding others!If I am a young, novice teacher and I am not sure, I will not scoldhim/her theree I have to be mindful of consequence. If I lose myself-control in scolding him/her, I will be very angry and anxiousafterwards.When a student talks back to his/her teacher [ayoung teacher], the teacher stampswith fury.Why? He/she feelsthat the student does not give face to [show due respect to] him/her, right? He/she feels that he/she cannot sort it out with thestudent and starts to become anxious. Then he/she is not surehow other teachers and students view him/her. So, becomingangry should be rational and if I feel that I am not certain, I willavoid it [confrontation]. (Interview-School 1-Female-4)

Just like this teacher said, criticising a student in the staff roomcould be a deliberate “show” in that she had to weigh the conse-quence of the expressions of her dark emotions. When problemsoccurred, she had to quickly complete the rational calculationaccording to the features of a situation and then determine the“degree” of emotional expression. Successful criticising of a studentonly happens when teachers are sure that they can properlyexpress their anger as well as control the situation very well.Without the support of rational operation, criticising a student inthe staff room would be a terrible gaffe.

Rather than separating emotion from rationality which isprevalent in some Western philosophies (Nias, 1996; Zembylas,2003), Chinese teachers tend to connect their emotional expres-sions to rationality or cognitive appraisal, and stress to regulatetheir emotions according to the professional and ethical norms forteaching. An informant told a story about a young teacher who isconsidered as problematic in her emotional expressions:

She is enthusiastic about teaching. The relationship between herand her students is extremely good. Every student of her classwants to be her friend and they follow whatever she tells.However, there is a problem with her e sometimes she forgetsthe connection between emotion and rationality. For example,she likes to chat with students, but she even chats with them inclasses for self-study. It is improper for a teacher to do this!(Interview-School 3-Female teacher-2)

In this case, although emotion helped the establishment ofa good relationship between the teacher and students, she had tobe careful about the possible negative impact of her emotionalexpressions. In teachers’ views, emotional expressions shouldalways accept the regulation of rationality and follow the profes-sional and ethical norms for teaching, otherwise, it would drawunfavourable comments on their conduct from their colleagues.

6. Discussion

The present study explored the role and highlighted themeaning of emotion in Chinese teachers’ work and the emotionalrules governing teachers’ emotions. In short, Chinese teachers think



emotion is a core part of a teacher’s work and teaching containsa significant component of “heart-consuming” labour, or inteachers’ terms, caoxin, by which teachers consider themselves asthe “mother” of their students. Teachers’ emotions are sociallyconstructed and regulated by a set of rules intimately related to theprofessional and ethical discourses about the teaching profession,including (1) committing to teaching with passion; (2) hidingnegative emotions; (3) maintaining positive emotions; and(4) instrumentalising emotions to achieve teaching goals.

The results of this study suggested that teachers can be seen asemotional workers whose emotions are under the control of a set ofemotional rules. The rules governing teachers’ emotions maysometimes be direct outside control in the form of principals’advice or colleagues’ criticism but in most cases, these rules exerttheir impact under the cover of professional competence ofteachers and ethical norms for teaching. For example, in theseteachers’ opinions, the ability to control and utilise emotions,especially in coping with conflict situations in teaching, is a sign oftheir teaching competence. Whether they can suppress negativeemotions and maintain positive ones also reflects teachers’ adher-ence to professional requirements. This implicit influence makesteachers’ emotional labour “not easily identified or recognised,mainly because emotional rules are disguised as ethical codes,professional techniques, and specialised pedagogical knowledge”(Zembylas, 2002, p. 201).

The findings of this study uncovered three interrelated issuesabout the nature of teachers’ emotional labour and emotional rulesworthy of future discussion, especially in the context of Chineseculture. Considering that the data were only collected from fourcase schools, these comments and cultural reflections may besomewhat overstated and broad, but they do provide some insightinto teachers’ emotional labour in China which helps the presentlevel of understanding and provides interesting pointers to futureresearch.

6.1. The role of teachers in Chinese culture

Research into the “Chinese learner” repeatedly shows thatalthough there are many less than positive characteristics of theclassroom environment in Chinese societies, such as lack of praiseof students, high pressure for academic performance, authoritarianapproaches to teaching, and hierarchical rather than democraticteacherestudent relationships, the interaction between teacherand students is not as disadvantageous as is frequently hypoth-esised by someWestern theories, but is frequently harmonious, andthe teacherestudent relationship is typically marked by a sense ofresponsibility and mutual respect (Ho, 2001; Lee et al., 2009;Watkins & Biggs, 2001). The reasons for this paradoxical phenom-enon are closely related to the Chinese beliefs concerning the roleof teachers.

As shown in the present study, the heavy “heart-consuming”labour in teaching makes the Chinese teachers think of themselvesas “mothers” or parents of their students. This finding echoes theChinese tradition that the relationship between a teacher and his/her students is akin to a parent and his/her sons (Watkins, 2000),and is consistent with the Chinese saying that “He who teaches mefor one day is my father for life” (yiri wei shi, zhongshen wei fu).Wang (2006) suggested that in Chinese cultures, there is a familialrelationship between teachers and students in which they think ofeach other as members of an extended family. In Zhu, Valcke, andSchellens’ (2010) recent comparison between Chinese andFlemish college teachers’ perspective on teacher roles, they foundthat though a hierarchical relationship exists between Chineseteachers and their students, the role of teachers in China aremulti-faceted in which teachers combine an authority relationship

with friendship to the students. Authority, responsibility, andmorality are all part of this relationship. As Gao (1998) observed,many teachers in China prefer a “parental directing” style in theirpractice; that is, teachers “are highly responsible and think thatthey should play a shaping and directing role in student learning”(p. 4). Therefore, Chinese teachers are expected to act as parentsand care about their students’ emotional well-being as well aslearning performance, even sometimes enforcing strict rules anddiscipline. It was seen in the present study that a teachermentioned the example of using anger to teach students in class-rooms. In his opinion, he showed anger to the students because “hecares about the situation and he wants students to do thingsproperly”.

6.2. The Chinese way of emotional communication and expression

The Chinese way of emotional communication and expressionaffects the teacher-student interaction in classrooms, too. Thefindings of this study indicated that teachers pay particular atten-tion to the potential consequence of emotional expressions onstudents. They passionately commit to teaching, hide negativeemotions, maintain positive emotions, and use vocal or gesturestrategies to regulate emotional expressions in order to facilitatestudent learning. Even when criticising students in the staff room,they also remind themselves that they need to keep the situationunder control and avoid direct confrontation with students. All ofthese are related to the Chinese way of emotional communicationand expression.

In the case of the Chinese who live in collectivist culturesemphasizing interdependence of self and social harmony, theymayfeel and express more other-focused emotions (Qu & Zhang, 2005),andemotional expressionmaybe ameans tomaintain interpersonalharmony (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). In fact, what these Chineseteachers did to manage their emotional expression in the presentstudy reflects their effort to establish a good teacherestudentrelationship in their classrooms. This argument is also supported bythe findings of some studies on Chinese people’s emotions. Forexample, Bond (1993) found that what differs in emotion in Chineseculture is the lower frequency, intensity, and duration with whichemotions are typically experienced, and expression of emotion iscarefully regulated in order to maintain interpersonal harmony andstatus hierarchies. Anolli, Wang, Mantovani, and De Toni’s (2008)cross-cultural comparison also found that the vocal expression ofemotions by the Chinese is characterized by a more restrained stylethan that of their Italian counterparts, which is because the Chineseculture emphasises relational harmony and concerns about theimpact that emotional practices may have on others. In terms ofcommunication and expression of emotions, the Chinese tend tofavour a high-context form of communication in a collectivisticculture which encompasses indirectness, implicitness (the conceptof hanxu in Chinese) as well as nonverbal expression (Aguinis &Roth, 2003). Saving face (mianzi) is also an important issue inChinese culture where maintaining “harmonious” relationship isimportant and under most circumstances, it will be unusual forteachers to have direct confrontation with or questioning ofstudents for protection of face.

Therefore, though Chinese classrooms usually feature teacherauthority, student compliance, and hierarchical teacherestudentrelationship, that does not necessarily lead to a harsh and coolclassroom environment, but may generate a “hierarchical butfriendly” climate (Zhu, Valcke, & Schellens, 2010). All theaforementioned cultural traditions, e.g., respect for interpersonalharmony, the high-context form of communication, saving facefor others and avoiding direct confrontation, facilitate theteacher-student interaction in Chinese classrooms, and encourage



a strong emphasis on an affective and personal relationshipbetween teachers and students (Ho, 2001).

6.3. Chinese teachers’ conformity to professional and ethical normsin managing emotions

The present study revealed the rational instrumentalisation ofChinese teachers’ emotions according to their professional andethical norms. The common thread among the four emotional rulesis teachers’ conformity to the professional and ethical norms in theteaching profession. In most cases, the emotional rules exert theirimpact under the cover of these norms, and teachers’ performancein managing their emotions is seen as an indicator of theirprofessional competence or a conduct following the caring ethic ofteaching. In general, all these Chinese teachers strongly emphasisethe importance of managing emotions in accordance with theirprofessional and ethical norms, even though these emotionalexpressions may conflict with their authentic feelings. Thisconsensus is deeply rooted in the conception of Chinese cultures.

In Chinese cultures, teachers traditionally enjoy a relatively highsocial status. As defined by Han Yu, one of the most outstandingscholars and educators in the Tang Dynasty, “a teacher is the onewho shows you the way of being human, teaches you knowledgeand enlightens youwhile you are confused” (On Teachers, Shi Shuo).Teachers are expected to play the roles of being models of goodconduct as well as transmitters of knowledge (L. Gao,1998; Zhang &Zhu, 2008), and they are placed on the same level as other keycultural figures in the temple of worship, i.e., heaven, earth, theemperor and parents (Fwu & Wang, 2002; X. Gao, 2008).

High social status implies high social expectation, too. Teachersin China are also expected to assume the heavy responsibilitiesimposed by society. For a long time, they were described as “silk-worms”, who tirelessly spin silk thread till death, “candles”, whoselflessly burn themselves to light others, and “soul engineers”,who carefully cultivate the mental as well as physical well-being ofstudents (X. Gao, 2008). Due to the influence of the Confuciantraditions and collectivist cultures, Chinese usually underline theneed to meet social obligations and responsibilities (Qu & Zhang,2005). Different from people with independent selves in the indi-vidualistic cultures who tend to express inner feelings as theautonomous expression of internal attributes (Markus & Kitayama,1991), the authentic, personal feelings of the Chinese are subordi-nate to social order and expectation, and thus it is more importantto reveal the public self (as a teacher) and do the “right” thing thanto show the feelings experienced by the private self (as an indi-vidual). This concern about displaying “appropriate” emotions tomeet social obligations may serve as a motive for inhibitingexpressive behaviour, resulting in conflict with the inner feelings orthe initial desire to express (Leung, 1998).

In addition, the “Chinese paradox of power” suggested by GaoXuesong (2008) is also helpful for understanding Chineseteachers’ stress having to conform to professional and ethicalnorms in managing their emotions. This “paradox of power” can bedescribed as a situation that places teachers, who enjoy high socialstatus in China, under a great burden to follow society’s moralnorms, and makes them more vulnerable to being shamed, andfeeling shame, if they fail (X. Gao, 2008). On the one hand, the highsocial status enjoyed by Chinese teachers may bring some benefitsfor teachers, e.g., respect from other social members or satisfactionwith their jobs (Fwu &Wang, 2002). On the other hand, teachers inChina also need to be amenable to public scrutiny of their moralityand conduct. This high risk of professional vulnerability intensifiesChinese teachers’ emotional labour and partly makes teachingbecome “a tragic job”. In order to avoid the possible failure in ful-filling social obligations, Chinese teachers must always keep these

professional and ethical norms for teaching in mind when theymanage their feelings and emotions in classrooms.

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the editors and anonymous reviewers fortheir invaluable comments on the previous versions of this paper.

Appendix. The refined coding system of emotional rules forChinese teachers

Theme Category Subcategory

Commit to teachingwith passion

Emotional investmentin teaching

Teaching as communicationbetween heartsBeing a passionate teacher

The dual role ofemotion

The link between passionand professional abilityThe ethical meaning ofpassion for students

Hide negativeemotions

The assumptionabout “emotion”

Positive emotions arenot “emotions”The negative connotationof “emotion” in daily talk

Removing the impactof negative emotions

Do not hinder studentlearningThe professional ethics

Maintain positiveemotions

Showing positiveemotions as a must

Teachers’ implicitconsensusPrincipal’s explicitrequirement

Motivating studentswith positive emotions

Teachers’ differentself-presentation inand out of classroomMake students happyin learning

Instrumentalisingemotions

Using emotion tofacilitate teaching

Emotions as helpfulpresentation skillsMatching emotionwith the contentof teaching

Utilising emotions asa signal of teachers’professional competence

Make use of negativeas well as positiveemotionsThe differences betweenhigh- and low-levelteachers in using darkemotions



References

Aguinis, H., & Roth, H. A. (2003, November). Teaching in China: Culture-based chal-lenges. Paper presented at the "Business Education and Emerging MarketEconomies: Trends and Prospects" Conference, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Anolli, L.,Wang, L.,Mantovani, F., &DeToni, A. (2008). The voice of emotion inChineseand Italian young adults. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 39, 565e598.

Bond, M. H. (1993). Emotions and their expression in Chinese culture. Journal ofNonverbal Behavior, 17, 245e262.

Constanti, P., & Gibbs, P. (2004). Higher education teachers and emotional labour.International Journal of Educational Management, 18, 243e249.

Day, C. (2004). A passion for teaching. London: RoutledgeFalmer.Day, C., & Gu, Q. (2009). Teacher emotions: well being and effectiveness. In

P. A. Schutz, & M. Zembylas (Eds.), Advances in teacher emotion research: theimpact on teachers’ lives (pp. 15e31). Dordrecht: Springer.

Day, C., & Kington, A. (2008). Identity, well-being and effectiveness: the emotionalcontexts of teaching. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 16, 7e23.

Day, C., & Leitch, R. (2001). Teachers’ and teacher educators’ lives: The role ofemotion. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17, 403e415.

Denzin, N. K. (1989). The research act: A theoretical introduction to sociologicalmethods (3rd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Elfenbein, H. A., & Ambady, N. (2002). On the universality and cultural specificity ofemotion recognition: a meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 203e235.

Fwu, B. J., & Wang, H. H. (2002). The social status of teachers in Taiwan. ComparativeEducation, 38, 211e224.

Gao, L. (1998). Cultural context of school science teaching and learning in thePeoples’ Republic of China. Science Education, 82, 1e13.

Gao, X. (2008). Teachers’ professional vulnerability and cultural tradition: a Chineseparadox. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24, 154e165.

George, M. (2008). Interactions in expert service work: demonstrating profession-alism in personal training. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 37, 108e131.

Gu, M. (2009). In pursuit of being a good educator. Journal of Chinese Society ofEducation, 3(1), in Chinese.

Hargreaves, A. (1998). The emotional practice of teaching. Teaching and TeacherEducation, 14, 835e854.

Hargreaves, A. (2000). Mixed emotions: teachers’ perceptions of their interactionswith students. Teaching and Teacher Education, 16, 811e826.

Hargreaves, A. (2001a). Emotional geographies of teaching. Teachers College Record,103, 1056e1080.

Hargreaves, A. (2001b). The emotional geographies of teachers’ relations withcolleagues. International Journal of Educational Research, 35, 503e527.

Ho, I. T. (2001). Are Chinese teachers authoritarian? In D. A. Watkins, & J. B. Biggs(Eds.), Teaching the Chinese learner: Psychological and pedagogical perspectives(pp. 99e114) Hong Kong and Melbourne: Comparative Education ResearchCentre and the Australian Council for Educational Research.

Hochschild, A. R. (1979). Emotion work, feeling rules, and social structure. AmericanJournal of Sociology, 85, 551e575.

Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling.Berkeley: University of California Press.

Hochschild, A. R. (1990). Ideology and emotion management: a perspective andpath for future research. In T. Kemper (Ed.), Research agendas in the sociology ofemotions (pp. 117e142). Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Hofstede, G. (1991). Culture and organizations: Software of the mind. London:McGraw-Hill.

Hofstede, G., & Bond, M. H. (1988). The Confucian connections: from cultural rootsto economic growth. Organizational Dynamics, 16, 5e21.

Isenbarger, L., & Zembylas, M. (2006). The emotional labour of caring in teaching.Teaching and Teacher education, 22, 120e134.

Kelchtermans, G. (1996). Teacher vulnerability: understanding its moral andpolitical roots. Cambridge Journal of Education, 26, 307e324.

Kelchtermans, G. (2005). Teachers’ emotions in educational reforms: Self-understanding, vulnerable commitment and micropolitical literacy. Teachingand Teacher Education, 21, 995e1006.

Kemper, T. D. (1993). Sociological models in the explanation of emotions. InM. Lewis, & J. M. Haviland (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 41e51). New York:The Guilford Press.

Kitching, K. (2009). Teachers’ negative experiences and expressions of emotion: Beingtrue to yourself or keeping you inyour place? Irish Educational Studies, 28,141e154.

Lasky, S. (2005). A sociocultural approach to understanding teacher identity, agencyand professional vulnerability in a context of secondary school reform. Teachingand Teacher Education, 21, 899e916.

Lee, J. C. K., & Yin, H. B. (2011). Teachers’ emotions and professional identity in curric-ulum reform: A Chinese perspective. Journal of Educational Change, 12, 25e46.

Lee, J. C. K., Yin, H. B., & Zhang, Z. H. (2009). Exploring the influence of the classroomenvironment on students’motivation and self-regulated learning in Hong Kong.The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 18, 219e232.

Leung, J. P. (1998). Emotions and mental health in Chinese people. Journal of Childand Family Studies, 7, 115e128.

Lewis, R., Romi, S., Qui, X., & Katz, Y. J. (2005). Teachers’ classroom discipline andstudent misbehavior in Australia, China and Israel. Teacher and Teacher Educa-tion, 21, 729e741.

Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition,emotion, and motivation. Psychological Review, 98, 224e253.

Masuda, T., Ellsworth, P. C., Mesquita, B., Leu, J., Tanida, S., & van de Veerdonk, E.(2008). Placing the face in context: cultural differences in the perception offacial emotion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 365e381.

Matsumoto, D. (1989). Cultural influences on the perception of emotion. Journal ofCross-Cultural Psychology, 20, 92e105.

Meyer, D. K. (2009). Entering the emotional practices of teaching. In P. A. Schutz, &M. Zembylas (Eds.), Advances in teacher emotion research: The impact on teachers’lives (pp. 73e91). Dordrecht: Springer.

Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: an expandedsourcebook (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Nias, J. (1996). Thinking about feeling: the emotions in teaching. Cambridge Journalof Education, 26, 293e306.

Niesche, R., & Haase, M. (2010). Emotions and ethics: a Foucauldian framework forbecoming an ethical educator. Educational Philosophy and Theory. doi:10.1111/j.1469e5812.2010.00655.x, Article first published online on 21 June 2010.

Noddings, N. (1996). The caring professional. In S. Gordon, P. Benner, & N. Noddings(Eds.), Caregiving: Readings in knowledge, practice, ethics and politics (pp.160e172). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

O’Connor, K. E. (2008). “You choose to care”: teachers, emotions and professionalidentity. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24, 117e126.

Ogbonna, E., & Harris, L. C. (2004). Work intensification and emotional labouramong UK university lectures: an exploratory study. Organizational Studies, 25,1185e1203.

Oplatka, I. (2007). Managing emotions in teaching: toward an understanding ofemotion displays and caring as nonprescribed role elements. Teachers CollegeRecord, 109, 1374e1400.

Qu, R., & Zhang, Z. (2005). Work group emotions in Chinese culture settings.Singapore Management Review, 27, 69e86.

Sachs, J., & Blackmore, J. (1998). You never show you can’t cope: Women in schoolleadership roles managing their emotions. Gender and Education, 10, 265e279.

Scholz, R. W., & Tietje, O. (2002). Embedded case study methods: Integrating quan-titative and qualitative knowledge. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Schutz, P. A., & Zembylas, M. (2009). Introduction to advances in teacher emotionresearch: the impact on teachers’ lives. In P. A. Schutz, & M. Zembylas (Eds.),Advances in teacher emotion research: The impact on teachers’ lives (pp. 3e11).Dordrecht: Springer.

Scott, C., & Sutton, R. E. (2009). Emotions and change during professional devel-opment for teachers: a mixed methods study. Journal of Mixed MethodsResearch, 3, 151e171.

Wang, T. (2006). Understanding Chinese culture and learning. In P. L. Jeffrey (Ed.),Proceedings of the international research conference of the Australian Associationfor Research in Education. Adelaide, SA: Australian Association for Researchin Education, Retrieved 12 April 2011 from http://www.aare.edu.au/06pap/wan06122.pdf.

Watkins, D. A. (2000). Learning and teaching. School Leadership and Management,20, 161e173.

Watkins, D. A., & Biggs, J. B. (2001). The paradox of the Chinese learner and beyond.In D. A. Watkins, & J. B. Biggs (Eds.), Teaching the Chinese learner: Psychologicaland pedagogical perspectives (pp. 3e23). Hong Kong and Melbourne: Compar-ative Education Research Centre and the Australian Council for EducationalResearch.

Wharton, A. S. (2009). The sociology of emotional labor. Annual Review of Sociology,35, 147e165.

Winograd, K. (2003). The functions of teacher emotions: The good, the bad, and theugly. Teachers College Record, 105, 1641e1673.

Yik, M. (2010). How unique is Chinese emotion? In M. H. Bond (Ed.), The Oxfordhandbook of Chinese psychology (pp. 205e220) Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Yin, H. B., & Lee, J. C. K. (2011). Emotions matter: teachers’ feelings of their inter-actionwith teacher trainers in curriculum reform. Chinese Education and Society,44(4), 82e97.

Zembylas, M. (2002). Structures of feeling" in curriculum and teaching: theorizingthe emotional rules. Educational Theory, 52, 187e208.

Zembylas, M. (2003). Emotions and teacher identity. Teachers and Teaching: Theoryand Practice, 9, 213e238.

Zembylas, M. (2004). Emotion metaphors and emotional labor in science teaching.Science Education, 88, 301e324.

Zembylas, M. (2005). Discursive practices, genealogies, and emotional rules:a poststructuralist view on emotion and identity in teaching. Teaching andTeacher Education, 21, 935e948.

Zembylas, M. (2006). Witnessing in the classroom: the ethics and politics of affect.Educational Theory, 56, 305e324.

Zembylas, M. (2007). Theory and methodology in researching emotions in educa-tion. International Journal of Research and Method in Education, 30, 57e72.

Zhang, Q., & Zhu, W. (2008). Exploring emotion in teaching: emotional labor,burnout, and satisfaction in Chinese higher education. Communication Educa-tion, 57, 105e122.

Zhu, C., Valcke,M., & Schellens, T. (2010). A cross-cultural studyof teacher perspectiveson teacher roles and adoption of online collaborative learning in higher education.European Journal of Teacher Education, 33, 147e165.


Be passionate, but be rational as well: Emotional rules for Chinese teachers’ work.

Documents