Educators’ exercising of emotional labour in their work with families: Implications for early childhood educators' wellbeing

Abstract

Early childhood educators in Australia and internationally are required to partner with families, however, understandings of such work, particularly the emotional labour inherent in this relational work, are, however, limited. Furthermore, how such relational work with families impacts educator wellbeing also remains unclear. Given unprecedented wellbeing, turnover, and attrition challenges in early childhood education and care, understandings of educators’ work and its related wellbeing are critical. To address these knowledge gaps, this study’s longitudinal mixed-method investigation adopted a critical feminist and ecological systems framing of emotional labour theory to explore educators’ emotional labour and wellbeing while working with families. Emotional labour was found to be prevalent in educators’ work with families and was influenced by five interconnected ecological factors. Evidence revealed the professionality, reflective planning and professional judgement involved in educators' emotional labour with families, where increased awareness of emotional labour deepened educators' understandings of this work, signalling that emotional labour skills can be learnt and developed. This collective evidence debunked entrenched maternalistic notions that such work is skill-less and effortless. Findings also unveiled that whether emotional labour was negative or positive for educators’ wellbeing hinged upon contextual factors. Moreover, evidence revealed that emotional labour could result in meaningful, rewarding experiences of working with families that benefitted educators’ relational work which could sustain educators’ wellbeing. Evidence that sustained wellbeing enabled educators to exercise emotional labour, highlighted that emotional labour and wellbeing’s relationship was found to be more complex than just positive and negative impacts. Contributions and implications for educators, employers, training providers, and policymakers are unpacked.