Investigating the Emotional Dimension of Subject Advisers’ Work with Teachers
Date
2023-08
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Abstract
This doctoral thesis investigates the emotional dimension of subject advisers’ work with teachers. The emotional aspect of subject advisers’ work is relatively under-researched. So, this study aims to find out how subject advisers in two differently performing Gauteng districts think and feel about their work with teachers. A conceptual framework was developed using Nussbaum’s (2003) understanding that emotions are always directed at an “object”, Turner’s (2014) understandings that emotions are a valued resource and are unequally distributed, and Frijda’s (1986) understanding that emotions are relevance signalling mechanisms. The conceptual framework also draws on Hochschild (1979; 1983), Zembylas (2002; 2006) and Steinberg (2008; 2014) to operationalize the concepts of emotional rules and emotional labour. The conceptual framework comprises of three concepts: emotions, emotional rules and emotional labour, utilized as a conceptual and analytical lens for analysing subject advisers’ work. The conceptual framework opens opportunities for further research into subject advisers’ emotions. Using a basic interpretive qualitative approach, the study focuses on nine subject advisers’ experiences of their work with teachers. Individual interviews and document reviews provided most of the data for this study. Key findings that arise from this study are that the subject advisers are frustrated at the inability to mediate their monitoring and support roles, which generates tensions that complicate the interaction between subject advisers and teachers. Additionally, the disempowering emotions of subject advisers is caused by lack of influence. Even so, the subject adviser-teacher relationship is complicated by competing power dynamics. However, subject advisers are committed to their jobs despite the challenges they encounter. Their emotional labour shows that subject advisers struggle to escape the negative impressions teachers have about them, while aiming to better support teachers. Their emotional rules show how they strive to fulfil their personal moral mandate of improving the education system. The key insight gained is that subject advisers’ relationship with teachers can be improved, if both teachers and subject advisers commit themselves to an open trusting relationship through proper teacher support. Real cooperation between teachers and subject advisers is possible if the work subject advisers do with teachers is premised on knowledge sharing, rather than on monitoring for compliance.
Description
Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, at the Faculty of Humanities, Wits School of Education, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023.
Keywords
Emotions, Subject Advisers, Districts, Support, Monitoring, UCTD
Citation
Nwachukwu, Chioma. (2023). Investigating the Emotional Dimension of Subject Advisers’ Work with Teachers. [PhD thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, Johaanesburg]. WIReDSpace. https://hdl.handle.net/10539/41392