Emotion Labor as Professional Development Work: Insights from Teachers Doing Action Research

Abstract

AbstractOver the past decades, research on language teachers' engagement in action research (AR) and more recently on their emotion labor has exponentially grown. However, little research is available on how AR and emotion labor intersect to shape language teacher professional development. This study addressed this gap by reporting on how four Iranian English language teachers used emotion labor as professional development work during participation in an AR project. Data were collected from reflective journals and classroom observations as well as the associated postclass discussions during the enactment of AR, and from interviews at two junctures in time, once during the course and once longitudinally after six and 12 months. Data analyses revealed that the teachers used AR as a mechanism for minimizing the gap between their internal feelings and external expectations, and gradually developed the identity of a teacher–researcher by using the affordances emotion labor provided. Moreover, the teachers retrospectively developed emotional learning, which facilitated their response to institutional expectations in the short term and to the professional discourses of teaching in the long term. We conclude the paper with implications for teacher education to better understand how emotions feature in AR and how emotion labor could be employed for AR‐induced professional development.