Working with Emotions in the Classroom: Future Teachers’ Attitudes and Education

Abstract

This paper discusses the results of a qualitative study aimed at analysing the attitudes of education students towards emotional education and the training that they receive in this area. The 122 participants were enrolled in the first year of the Teacher Training Degree in Primary Education at the University of Alicante (Spain). The study focused on their views about the relevance of emotional education in their initial teacher training, as well as their willingness to work with emotions in the future. The results suggest that pre-service teachers have favourable attitudes towards dealing with emotions in the classroom. They also recognised the importance of teachers’ training in developing pupils’ emotional competence. Additionally, they argued that their university lecturers provided them with various strategies to promote pupils’ learning about how to deal with emotions. However, they considered that this training was sparse and too theoretical. The proposals made by the participants notably included that it is essential to rely on emotional education from the earliest stages of the education system, and especially in teacher training programmes.