A sociocultural perspective on the relationship between educators’ emotional experiences and professional learning

This research investigated the relationship between teachers’ emotions and their professional learning in navigating tensions concerning classroom management. It drew on Vygotsky’s concept of perezhivanie (Vygotsky, The Vygotsky reader. Blackwell, 1994), which views situations as having a differential impact on individuals’ psychological development depending on how they interpret and experience the event or situation. Participants in this research were three tertiary educators at a public university in Vietnam. Adopting a qualitative case design, the study utilised interviews, classroom observations and reflective journals for its data collection, spanning over 12 weeks. Through qualitative content analysis, it was revealed that the participants experienced similar tensions relating to classroom management. However, they differed in their emotional responses to the tensions and insights developed from the situation, which in turn affected their pedagogical decisions. Perezhivanie as a theoretical lens allowed the study to extrapolate the relationships among emotions, subjectivity and learning in an intricate way. The new insights gained offer implications for supporting teachers’ professional learning that focus on teacher emotions and productive response to emotions.