Lisa E. Kim

In recent years, many countries have been experiencing challenges in teacher recruitment and retention (Gehrmann and Germer 2025), with the latter being of particular concern in the education syste...

How we regulate others’ emotions can have a positive impact (when improving emotions) or negative impact (when worsening emotions) on relationships and emotional wellbeing. The current study aims to develop theoretical frameworks of motives and strategies for making others feel worse. We conducted a content analysis of 90 incidents of attempts to make someone feel worse, drawn from a 2024 online survey of 50 adults from five English-speaking countries. Deductive frameworks were adapted given the collected data. The motives framework includes 11 motives (dominate, retaliate, gain autonomy, make them look worse, make me look better, make them feel worse, make me feel better, achieve my outcome, achieve their outcome, manage their expectations, make them seek truth) categorised by regulation target (self-focus, other-focus) and regulation aim (change power, change appearance, change emotion, change outcome, change thought). The strategies framework grouped eight strategies into four themes ordered from high to low engagement with the target: insulting (aggressing, taunting), fault-finding (shaming, guilting), downplaying (showing off, cautioning) and withdrawing (withholding, ignoring). Motive/strategy contingencies showed distinct patterns of motives for different strategies (e.g., self-focused motives were linked to shaming, other-focused motives to guilting). Motives and strategies differed in their associations with target/regulator closeness, and in their perceived impact on the target’s emotions and target/regulator relationship. The two frameworks facilitate a deeper understanding of how and why people attempt to make others feel worse, illustrating the fundamental mechanisms underlying such behaviors in contexts characterized by conflict and aggression, such as intimate partner violence, bullying and abuse.

Beliefs and emotions are intricately connected. This study first investigated changes in pre-service teachers’ emotional intelligence (EI) over three years of initial teacher education. It then examined the relationship between EI and cultural beliefs (i.e., multicultural and egalitarian beliefs), and the stability of these associations across time. The study used data collected from two cohorts in eight Finnish universities using an online survey at the beginning of the first study year (N = 2141) and in the third study year (N = 654). The results suggested that the cohorts differed in the mean scores for managing emotions and using emotions , but there was no meaningful change in any of the ability EI branches over time. Further, the initial positive association between EI and multicultural beliefs had weakened by the third study year. These associations can be explained by the stability the constructs exhibited over time. This study underscores the intentional integration of EI training and culturally responsive pedagogy into teacher education curricula.

Teaching is an emotionally demanding profession with alarmingly high early-career attrition rates. Understanding which individual differences predict successful adaptation during the critical transition from teacher education to professional practice is essential for supporting teacher retention and well-being. This longitudinal study examined how personality traits, academic motivation, and emotion regulation strategies measured at the beginning of teacher education (T1) predicted professional outcomes approximately four years later during early-career teaching (T2). Participants were 311 Belgian preservice teachers (79.4% women; Mage = 19.9 years) who completed assessments at program entry and follow-up surveys (n = 93) after entering the workforce. Results revealed that personality traits demonstrated the strongest predictive validity. Extraversion predicted multiple positive outcomes, including better classroom management, student engagement, emotional self-regulation, stress resilience, and lower turnover intentions. Conscientiousness predicted professional commitment, while Open-Mindedness was associated with creative and culturally responsive teaching but paradoxically also with higher burnout symptoms. Neuroticism predicted greater burnout. Contrary to expectations, initial academic motivation did not significantly predict study completion or job satisfaction. Emotion regulation strategies showed domain-specific effects: cognitive reappraisal predicted higher job satisfaction, while expressive suppression predicted lower satisfaction, though only when controlling for personality. These findings highlight personality traits—particularly Extraversion—as robust early indicators of teacher adjustment and suggest that teacher education programs should consider incorporating personality-informed support strategies to facilitate successful transitions into the profession.

Literature exploring how successfully creative arts-based educational practices (CAEPs) are used with 11-19 year old autistic students depicts a positive picture. However, findings are disjointed and appear to have been framed by a corrective, pathology-focussed ideology. This mixed-methods systematic review provides an objective synthesis of evidence on the nature of CAEPs, stakeholders’ perceptions of CAEPs, and CAEP outcomes, when CAEPs are used with 11-19 year old autistic students. Following this, the discussion contextualises the synthesis within a neurodiversity affirmative paradigm, which is a novel approach in this field of research. In total, 15 qualitative, 6 quantitative and 3 mixed methods reports were identified and included in the convergent integrated qualitative synthesis, resulting in four integrated findings: (1) perceptions of autism, (2) the nature of CAEPs, (3) CAEP outcomes, and (4) barriers and facilitators. These findings will be contextualised in a discussion about the conflicts that arose during the quality appraisal process, the potential biases and the paradigmatic framing of the included reports, and the numerous gaps in research that remain.

Given the recruitment and retention crisis within the teaching profession, it is essential that the factors contributing to this are examined. Studies suggest that there has been a general decline in teacher wellbeing since the onset of the Covid‐19 pandemic, and student conduct problems are known to be a key negative contributor to poor teacher wellbeing. This study examines how student conduct problems influenced teachers’ wellbeing following the onset of the Covid‐19 pandemic. Specifically, it explores the extent to which student behaviour was seen as changing during the pandemic, and how this may have had an impact on teachers’ wellbeing. Nine participants took part in this study. All the participants were teachers in schools in England (four primary and five secondary; nine female). The data were collected via semi‐structured virtual interviews. Using a qualitative approach, the study undertook an in‐depth analysis of the interview data using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. The findings suggest that the teachers experienced an increase in student conduct problems following the onset of the pandemic and that this negatively affected wellbeing for some. The teachers also reported an increased need for student support and differential needs for different groups of students. It is important that consideration is given as to how teachers can be effectively supported to manage student conduct problems and the potential impact of these on their wellbeing, particularly since the onset of the pandemic.

Given the disruptions the COVID‐19 pandemic has engendered in people's professional lives, the importance and contribution of certain workforces has been under particular scrutiny. In England, the teaching profession has been under particularly close public scrutiny, with concerns that teachers’ perceived social appreciation may have decreased throughout the pandemic. Thus, the current study examined the trajectory of teachers’ perceptions of how much society, policymakers and the media had valued the teaching profession throughout this time. With an initial sample of 24 primary and secondary teachers in mainstream state schools in England, 54 online interviews took place at three time points: when school buildings were partially reopened for the first time (June 2020), when they were partially closed for the second time (February 2021) and when they were fully reopened for 16 months (July 2022). Three themes were identified in the data using a longitudinal trajectory analysis based on reflexive thematic analysis: ‘initial admiration from local communities progressively waned’, ‘continuous government disrespect towards teachers’ and ‘initial media vitriol towards teachers was sustained’. Implications for how teachers and other stakeholders in education can most effectively work together for the benefit of the health and effectiveness of the teaching profession and the educational system are considered in the context of the associated risks when teachers have low levels of perceived social appreciation.