Emotional labor
Many jobs involving interactions with others call
on workers to manufacture or mask their emotions
on many occasions. The polite waitress, enthusi-
astic salesman, solicitous undertaker or irritated
debt collector are all expressions of this phenom-
enon. Teachers manufacture and mask their emo-
tions too*when they enthuse about a new initiat-
ive, are overjoyed with a student's breakthrough,
show patience with a frustrating colleague, or are
calm in the face of parental criticism. Is this an
expression of emotional intelligence*of the ability
to manage one's moods? Or does it mean that
teachers' emotions are somehow arti"cial or in-
authentic*that teachers are just acting, and not in
tune with their selves? The key point is that in
either case, emotions do not always arise spontan-
eously or naturally. Creating and sustaining a dy-
namic, engaging lesson, for example, requires hard
emotional work, investment, or labor. So too does
remaining calm and unru%ed when confronted by
threatening student behavior.
The idea of emotional labor is di!erent from and
in some ways diametrically opposed to the idea of
emotional intelligence. Managing one's moods rep-
resents the highest form of competence for Goleman,
whereas for Hochschild (1983) in her classic text on
emotional labor, it involves selling out the emo-
tional self to the purposes and pro"ts of the organ-
ization*a smile for a sale, or sycophantic praise to
head o! the boss's criticism.
Yet, at its best, emotional labor in teaching (and
other occupations) can be pleasurable and reward-
ing*when people are able to pursue their own
purposes through it, and when they work in condi-
tions that allow them to do their jobs well (Oatley,
1991; Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993). At times like
these, emotional labor is at the heart of the passion
to teach (Freid, 1996). But as Hochschild (1983)
shows, emotional labor becomes negative and
draining when people feel they are masking or
manufacturing their emotions to suit the purposes
of others (Stenross & Kleinman, 1989), or when
poor working conditions make it impossible for
them to perform their work well.
In education, Blackmore (1996) has shown how
women principals who work in repressive policy
environments can become what she calls emotional
middle-managers of educational reform*leaders
who motivate their sta!s to implement or make the
best of the impractical and unpalatable policies of
government, and who lose something of themsel-
ves, their health and their personal relationships in
the process. In these sorts of circumstances, the