Early-childhood teachers’ emotion socialization practices: a multi-method study

ABSTRACT

We investigated early-childhood teachers’ emotion socialization practices via a multi-method study that combined self-report measures and structured observational situations at day care centre. Eighty-nine teachers (M_age = 38.29 years; SD = 11.06) completed two questionnaires about their emotion socialization style and beliefs about emotions, respectively. A subsample of 40 teachers also participated in two experimental situations designed for observing their responses to children's emotional distress. We developed an innovative coding system for classifying teachers’ reactions in terms of focus (problem, emotion, solution, time) and style (coaching, dismissing, and amplifying, a new style we detected). All teachers deployed a variety of emotion socialization practices. Coaching reactions (especially emotion-focused) were the most frequent, followed by dismissing (problem- and emotion-focused responses) and, to a lesser extent, amplifying responses (mainly problem-focused). There were significant associations between the self-report scores and the responses observed in the experimental situations. We discuss the educational implications of these findings.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotion socialization style
• observation
• early childhood teachers
• emotion socialization practices

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the teachers who took part in the study, as well as the directors of the participating early-childhood education centres who so cooperatively worked with us. Our special thanks to Clare O'Sullivan for her proof-reading of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics approval

This research received the approval by the Ethics Committee of the University of Milano-Bicocca.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by a grant from the University of Milano-Bicocca (ATE-0116, 2016) awarded to the first Author.

Notes on contributors

Veronica Ornaghi

Veronica Ornaghi is Professor of Developmental Psychology, Department of Human Sciences for Education, University of Milano-Bicocca. Her recent research interests focus on the relation bewteen parents' and teachers' emotion socialization practices and the development of children's socio-emotion skills.

Elisabetta Conte

Elisabetta Conte is a post-doc researcher at the Department of Human Sciences for Education, University of Milano-Bicocca. Her main research interests concern the development and promotion of social-emotional competences, language abilities, and cognitive skills during early childhood, preschool and school years. She is also interested in socialization processes in educational and school contexts.

Alessia Agliati

Alessia Agliati teaches Intercultural Pedagogy at the Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca. Her main research interests are in the field of Developmental and Educational Psychology, with particular attention to socio-emotional learning and emotion socialization in educational contexts.

Sabina Gandellini

Sabina Gandellini is a pedagogist and works as supervisor and tutor for students in Science of Education. She is a trainer and holds courses for early-childhood educators and teachers.