Affective Labor and Social Justice in Educational Contexts
Summary
Affective labour in education encompasses the emotional and relational work undertaken by teachers, support staff and learners to create supportive and inclusive learning environments. This form of labour involves managing one’s own feelings and responding to the affective needs of students, while sustaining motivation, empathy and trust. Affective labour intersects with social justice by exposing inequalities in the distribution of emotional support, recognition and opportunities for care across different demographic groups. Research in this field highlights how educators from marginalised backgrounds often shoulder disproportionate emotional burdens, how institutional policies may neglect the affective dimension of teaching, and how a focus on high-stakes assessment can undermine wellbeing and equity. Emerging themes include the role of affective practices in decolonising curricula, the impact of digital technologies on teacher–student relationships, and strategies for embedding care-centred pedagogies that advance both academic success and social inclusion. The global scope of this work spans primary, secondary and tertiary settings, emphasising that sustainable educational reform requires attention to both material and emotional dimensions of labour and justice.
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Affective Labor and Social Justice in Educational Contexts publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in affective labor and social justice in educational contexts across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Affective labour: The work of managing and responding to emotions and relationships in educational settings, including the creation of supportive learning climates.
Emotional labour: The process by which educators regulate their own feelings and expressions to meet the emotional requirements of their role and support students’ affective needs.
Affective equality: A dimension of social justice concerned with equitable access to care, emotional support and recognition within educational contexts.
References
- Love actually: a thematic review of teacher passion for the subject. Discover Education (2024).
- Epistemologias feministas, cuidado e educação profissional e tecnológica. Revista Brasileira da Educação Profissional e Tecnológica (2024).
- Caring in the classroom: the hidden toll of emotional labor of abolitionist scholar-activism. Contemporary Justice Review (2022).
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