Organising in Schools: It’s All About Emotion

Abstract

This chapter seeks to make the case that emotions are central in organising in schools and that the way members of staff oversee their emotion processes is crucial to the legitimacy of the institution. The logic of the case is simple, as follows. There are three forms of affect: feelings, moods and emotions. Feelings and moods are affective states, the description of which depicts our inner world. Emotions are very different. They entail a process in which an event of some kind is experienced and appraised. This appraisal results in physiological responses, psychological changes and social responses, which entail actions. The emotion process creates a state of action readiness and a motivation to act. The actions are manifestations of power and they may influence those who experience them. Because actions influence, they are leadership actions and are therefore central to organising processes. Actions may have a high affective content and may be experienced as an individual ‘emoting’, which typically increases the significance of the action experienced by others. Emoting can therefore change the influencing effect of an action. We may seek to defend ourselves from actions with a high affective content by means of social defences, which can take various forms. The social actions resulting from the emotion process and emoting are subject to a whole range of ‘rules’: personal, interpersonal, institutional and cultural. How well members of the school staff understand and oversee – manage – that emotion process in relation to these rules is crucial to the legitimacy of schools as institutions.

Citation

James, C. (2019), "Organising in Schools: It’s All About Emotion", Oplatka, I. and Arar, K. (Ed.) Emotion Management and Feelings in Teaching and Educational Leadership (Studies in Educational Administration), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 25-41. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-78756-010-920191002