ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Mental Health and Wellbeing in Education
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1595192
"I didn't want them to see that I was spent": Educators' stress and emotional labor during
Provisionally accepted
Aaron Leo*
Kristen C. Wilcox- School of Education, University at Albany, Albany, United States
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Research has demonstrated the difficulties faced by educators during the COVID-19 pandemic. In these unprecedented conditions, educators were asked to manage their emotions in new and challenging ways, thus exacerbating already educators' relatively high levels of stress levels and burnout. We contribute to research on the pandemic’s impact on educators through a qualitative case study conducted with 88 educators working in six schools across New York State. In this paper, we explore these educators’ experiences of emotional labor during the pandemic, drawing attention to the ways educators managed emotions along display rules that compelled them to mask signs of stress and maintain a positive attitude. Through the constant-comparison method of data analysis, we found collegial support to be a crucial resource which participants drew on to manage their emotions in this highly stressful context. These findings have important implications for educators and policymakers as stress is a major contributor to the workforce shortages many schools across the United States are currently experiencing.
Keywords: Emotions, Workforce, stress, pandemic (COVID19), Qualitative
Received: 17 Mar 2025; Accepted: 03 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Leo and Wilcox. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Aaron Leo, School of Education, University at Albany, Albany, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.