ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1639197
Teachers' Emotional Labor in Parent-Teacher Interactions: Key elements and Theoretical Logic from a Grounded Theory Approach
Provisionally accepted
- Hefei Normal University, Hefei, China
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In the context of home-school cooperation becoming an important part of global education reform, the burdens of teachers' emotional labor in parent-teacher interactions has increased.Their emotional labor in parent-teacher interactions not only affects home-school cooperation but also influences teachers' well-being both professionally and personally. In response to the challenge of growing emotional labor burdens on teachers, the research on the key elements and theoretical logic of teachers' emotional labor in parent-teacher interactions is of great significance. Semi-structured interviews were held with twenty teachers in primary and secondary schools in China. Retrieved data were coded at three levels to explore the key elements of teachers' emotional labor in parent-teacher interactions and construct a theoretical model of these elements. The model is structured around seven elements：emotional labor environment, personal characteristics, emotion competencies, emotional foundation, emotional interactions, emotional labor practices, and emotional labor consequences. The findings construct a theoretical framework for teachers' emotional labor in parent-teacher interactions, enrich research on this topic from a relational dimension, and provide theoretical and practical insights.
Keywords: teachers' emotional labor, Parent-teacher interactions, the key elements, Theoretical logic, grounded theory
Received: 01 Jun 2025; Accepted: 18 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhai and Guo. 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: Li Zhai, Hefei Normal University, Hefei, China
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