Teachers’ experience and regulation of anger and fear in the school context

Abstract

The study focuses on the experience and regulation of teachers’ anger and fear in the school context, as emotions play an important role in teachers’ professional work. The sample comprised 101 Slovenian primary teachers, aged from 25 to 61 years (M = 41.36; SD = 10.28). The results indicate that the teachers rarely experienced anger and fear at work and at home, although anger was experienced more frequently than fear. Anger and fear were triggered in specific circumstances: the majority of situations triggering anger involved students, while the majority of situations triggering fear involved parents. The teachers employed various strategies to regulate anger and fear, most of which were used moderately. Some differences emerged: situation modification, experiential response modulation and physical activation were used more frequently to regulate anger than fear, while suppression was used more frequently to regulate fear that anger. As emotions represent an important part of school life, the results may prove valuable to all involved in the school context.

Keywords:

• Emotion
• anger
• fear
• emotion regulation
• primary education teachers

Disclosure statement

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