Emotions and activism: English language teachers’ emotion labor as responses to institutional power

ABSTRACT This article explores the relationship between teachers’ emotions and possibilities for their activism. Using the lens of emotion labor and grounded in a discursive approach to emotions, it examines English language teachers’ responses to institutional power. High-stakes literacy testing is used as an example of top-down institutional policies that may conflict with English language teachers’ training and/or pedagogical preferences thereby producing emotion labor. However, rather than viewing emotion labor as a psychological impediment, the article proposes that it be honored, in the service of teacher activism. Suggestions for recruiting emotion labor for transformational purposes are offered.