Teachers emotional labor: conceptualization of the idea and research approaches

The article describes the notion of teacher’s emotional labor, which is an important and often neglected subject in didactics and pedeutology. The thesis is that the manner in which a teacher's emotional labor is being conceptualized affects test method and interpretation. The article presents three different manners in which emotional labor may be conceptualized: (1) emotional labor as process of emotion regulation (psychological approach); (2) emotional labor as a work requirement (sociological approach); (3) emotional labor as a transformation and development tool/as a byproductive labor (critical approach). Each approach is assigned to a different methodological perspective which may be used by educational researchers: (1) quantitative research; (2) qualitative research; (3) “new'' qualitative studies.