Good sitting, looking and listening: the regulation of young children's emotions in the classroom

Abstract

Increasing attention has been given in schools in recent years to emotions as part of children's development and as core to their learning. Yet limited attention has been paid to emotions in childhood research. Based on findings from an ethnographic study within a Scottish school with children aged 6–7 years, this article explores the construction and negotiation of emotions as a part of children's classroom experience. Children's bodies and emotions are highly controlled in the classroom but despite this control, children actively construct emotions in their everyday lives.

Keywords:

• emotions
• embodiment
• school
• regulation

Notes

Emotional intelligence refers to individual traits while emotional literacy has been used to refer to the embedding of emotions within systems (Roffey 2005).

Scott (2008) argues that emotion has replaced the moral/spiritual aspects of our understanding of humanity.

For example see the City of Edinburgh Council's ‘Creating Confident Kids’ resources. http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/internet/Learning/Learning_publications/CEC_creating_confident_kids

For a detailed account of emotions and social theory see Williams (2001).

The individual interviewees were chosen on the basis of convenience. There were not sufficient funds to interview all the children individually. Those interviewed were the children it was possible to arrange interviews with before the end of the research.

Most of the data referred to in this section come from observations. When appropriate, interview data are also drawn on to contextualise the observations in relation to the children's description of emotions more generally.