Emotion And The Researcher

Contributors to this edited collection argue for an emotional rebellion in the academic world, arguing that the presentation of research as ‘objective’ conceals the subject positions of researchers and the emotional imperatives that often drive research.

This volume presents different conceptual and theoretical frameworks as well as research methods that have helped educational researchers to study emotions. It includes innovative approaches that push the methodological boundaries that have served educational researchers until now and proposes new ways of researching emotions in educational contexts. In particular, this edited volume provides a historical frame for studying emotions. It connects theoretical/epistemological views with choice of research methods and describes specific methods helpful in doing research on emotions as they are grounded in different theoretical and disciplinary traditions such as psychology, philosophy, sociology, history, political science, cultural studies, and feminist studies. Finally, it appreciates the contextual and international dimensions of studying emotions in education and contributes to ongoing debates about the implications of our methodological choices for understanding emotion in education. This combination of variety, timeliness, potential for transformation of the field, and uniqueness make this a very valuable resource to introduce new scholars in the field alongside established scholars.

This illuminating Research Handbook analyses the role that emotions play and ought to play in legal reasoning and practice, rejecting the simplistic distinction between reason and emotion.

Why should researchers be interested in their feelings and emotions as they carry out research? Emotion is what it is to exist, to be human, and is present in every sphere of our lives. All activities are infused with emotion, even those that are constructed as ‘rational’, because rationality and emotionality are interpenetrated and entwined because all thinking is tinged with feeling, and all feeling is tinged with thinking. This book illuminates the emotional processes of doing social and organizational research, and the implications of this for the outcomes of research. With contributions from leading academics and research practitioners, it addresses the significant issue of the sometimes intense emotional experiences involved in doing research and the implications it has for the theory and practice of social research. By examining the nature of feelings and emotions, it explores how we might understand researchers’ emotions and experiences, and considers the often powerful feelings encountered in a variety of research contexts. Topics discussed include: power relations; psycho-social explanations of researcher emotions; paradoxical relations with research participants and the sometimes disturbing data that is gained; research supervision; the politics of research; gender; publishing, undergoing vivas and presenting at conferences. This book will therefore be a valuable companion to researchers and research students from the start of their career onwards.

Some reports estimate that nearly 50% of teachers entering the profession leave within the first five years (Alliance for Excellent Education 2004; Ingersoll, 2003; Quality Counts 2000). One explanation of why teachers leave the profession so early in their career might be related to the emotional nature of the teaching profession. For example, teaching is an occupation that involves considerable emotional labor. Emotional labor involves the effort, planning, and control teachers need to express organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions. As such, emotional labor has been associated with job dissatisfaction, health symptoms and emotional exhaustion, which are key components of burnout and related to teachers who drop out of the profession. Research into emotional labor in teaching and other aspects of teachers’ emotions is becoming increasingly important not only because of the growing number of teachers leaving the profession, but also because unpleasant classroom emotions have considerable implications for student learning, school climate and the quality of education in general. Using a variety of different methodological and theoretical approaches, the authors in this edited volume, Advances in Teacher Emotion Research: The Impact on Teachers’ Lives, provide a systematic overview that enriches our understanding of the role of emotions in teachers’ professional lives and work. More specifically, the authors discuss inquiry related to teachers’ emotions in educational reform, teacher identity, student involvement, race/class/gender issues, school administration and inspection, emotional labor, teacher burnout and several other related issues. This volume, then, represents the accumulation of different epistemological and theoretical positions related to inquiry on teachers’ emotions, acknowledging that emotions are core components of teachers’ lives. Advances in Teacher Emotion Research takes an eclectic look at teacher emotions, presenting current research from diverse perspectives, thereby making this volume a significant contribution to the field.

First published in 1988. We are presently witnessing a renaissance of research on emotion. In the last 10 years, an increasing number of empirical studies dealing with many different aspects of emotion has appeared. This monograph of research papers counteract the tendency toward dispersion and the lack of published work in this area. A major intent of this volume is to introduce a number of new methodological tools for research on emotion (for example, facet theory, non-metrical regression for patterns, voice resynthesis, and other methods) as well as to reassert the utility of some classical tools of social science research for studies of emotion (e.g., properly constructed questionnaires). In addition, it presents a number of theoretical notions that seem relevant to a systematic study of the emotion process (such as component process theory, a taxonomy of appraisal and coping dimensions, contextual and situational approaches, and inter-channel comparison). It is hoped that the results presented in this volume can serve as hypotheses for further work in this area. In the Appendix several sets of research materials are reprinted to encourage use in student research projects.

This book focuses on the place sand purpose of emotions in the research process, and explores the appropriate boundaries. Designed to explore how to manage the emotional content of research, the text service as a supplemental to qualitative research method courses, and is an excellent reference for the professional as well.

'The timely emergence of the book Research Companion to Emotions in Organizations is most welcome and highly valued. . . [it] has successfully brought together prominent researchers and authors who are actively involved in emotion research across the globe. . . the existence of this book brings a great help to facilitate research on the field. . . This book is highly recommended for postgraduate students and scholars who are interested in pursuing their quest for answers and solutions pertaining to emotion-related workplace problems. Consistent with its title, this book is a great companion to those embarking on this sort of scholarly journey.' - Abdul Kadir Othman, VISION - the Journal of Business Perspective