Determinants of Emotional Labor for Rural Kindergarten Teachers: A Qualitative Inquiry

Abstract

Based on in-depth interviews with 12 rural preschool teachers and three-level coding analysis, this study finds that their emotional labor is a dynamic system formed by the interaction of multiple factors at the three levels of individual, organization and context. Among them, organizational factors such as the support from parents and children, work autonomy, and the support from peers and administrators play the most direct and core role, which significantly affect the positive emotional experience and emotional exhaustion of teachers. Contextual factors such as material security levels, social prejudice and family support provide macro sociocultural background and resource conditions for their emotional labor. While individual factors such as educational sentiment, emotional intelligence and emotional expression style act as internal regulatory mechanisms, jointly affecting teachers’ understanding, response and adjustment to emotional needs. Therefore, coordinated efforts are needed from the levels of institutional guarantee, kindergarten support and individual capacity cultivation to systematically improve the emotional labor quality of rural preschool teachers.