International Journal of Emotional Education

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Authors: Rachael Jacobs

Dewey (1938) once wrote that the most effective forms of learning connect intellectual processes with emotion, which is able to inspire curiosity and excite the learner. This paper adds to the body of research that attests to the transformative role of affect in teacher education, which is able to be cultivated through arts-based service-learning experiences. Pre-service teachers at two universities in Sydney, Australia were placed in service-learning settings that were based around participatory experiences in drama and storytelling, music, dance or visual art. The pre-service teachers’ reflections on the placement revealed a transformative experience which combined emotional learning with critical analysis of social justice issues as they relate to education. As part of their placement, they experienced arts engagement that utilised affect and emotion as a transformative pedagogy. They broadened their understanding of the role of teachers, both in an institution and in society. These emerging understandings led them to find voice as advocates, investigate arts education and community projects as alternative career paths and re-evaluate their own perceptions of quality teaching. Some participants continued engaging with the community arts projects after the placement had concluded, and others became advocates for the arts in education and society. Finally, they adopted a critical stance on social justice issues, and shed light on the ways that arts learning service-learning placements can become deeper engagements, leading to sustainable benefits for all parties.

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Authors: Valeria Cavioni, Ilaria Grazzani, Veronica Ornaghi, Alessia Agliati, Sabina Gandellini, Carmel Cefai, Liberato Camilleri, Paul Bartolo, Sanja Tatalović Vorkapić, Lana Golob, Maria Poulou, Baiba Martinsone, Inga Supe, Celeste Simões, Paula Lebre, Adina Colomeischi, Petruta Rusu, Lidia Acostoaie, Tatiana Vintur, Elisabetta Conte

In the last two years, a growing number of studies have focused on the promotion of students’ mental health to address the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, less studies have been conducted on sustaining teachers’ mental health which has been affected by the sudden changes in online teaching and the difficulties in keeping and building relationship with students. Even before the pandemic, teaching has long been recognised as one of the most challenging occupations characterized by high levels of stress. Although the research highlighted the key role of mental health promotion among teachers, there is still a lack of programs enhancing teachers’ wellbeing. This study examined the impact of the PROMEHS program, a school-based curriculum, on teachers’ mental health. A total of 687 teachers participated in the study. Applying a pre- and post-training study design with experimental and waiting list groups, teachers were evaluated in social and emotional learning, resilience, and self-efficacy. The results showed that there was a significant improvement in all competences of the teachers in the experimental group compared to those in the waiting list group. The paper discusses the implications of the findings with recommendations for further studies in the area.

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Authors: Jean-Marc Triffaux, Serge Tisseron and Julian A. Nasello

Several authors have underlined the negative consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health in several populations, including medical students, such as increases in anxiety, depression and burnout symptoms. Furthermore, previous studies showed that anxiety and depressive symptoms are positively associated with affective empathy and negatively associated with cognitive empathy. Given the adverse pandemic effects highlighted by several authors, the present study sought to determine whether medical students’ empathy has been potentially impacted, with higher affective empathy and lower cognitive empathy score in the pandemic cohort compared to pre-pandemic cohorts. Medical students (n = 395) were recruited during the COVID-19 pandemic and completed the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) and the Basic Empathy Scale (BES). This cohort was then compared with two pre-pandemic cohorts (one used the BES [n = 1168], and the other used the IRI [n = 342]). Similar results were found on both scales: the pandemic cohort displayed significantly higher scores in affective empathy and personal distress (affective empathy domain) and, surprisingly, significant higher scores in cognitive empathy, fantasy, and perspective-taking (cognitive empathy domains). As stressed by previous studies, we posited that the higher scores in affective empathy, personal distress, and fantasy might indicate emotional difficulties. The paper concludes with the identification of empathy components that should be promoted in the curriculum of medical students.

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Authors: Dilek Ozdogan and Savas Akgul

The current study comparatively examines the emotional intelligence and perfectionism of gifted and non-identified students. A total of 857 students participated in the study. Data were collected through the Positive and Negative Perfectionism Scale, which measures students’ perfectionism levels and the Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory Youth Version EQ-i:YV, which measures students’ emotional intelligence. Our findings indicate that gifted students' scores in the intrapersonal and adaptability subdimensions of emotional intelligence and their overall scores in emotional intelligence are higher than those of non-identified students; while non-identified students’ average score of positive perfectionism is higher than that of the gifted students. Additionally, we found a negative correlation between positive impression and negative perfectionism in the non-identified group, while the correlation between these variables was positive amongst the gifted participants. Our findings may help design successful educational and guidance programmes for the gifted and their non-identified peers and in-service programmes for their teachers and counsellors.

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Authors: Iñigo Aguinaga San José, Ana Martinez-Pampliega, Txemi Santamaría and Laura Merino Ramos

This paper presents a model that analyses the relationship between the coach’s emotional competences and the training climate as predictors of the youngsters’ emotional competences and psychological well-being. In the present study, 309 athletes and 17 coaches participated in the study. A general predictive model was estimated with path analysis and the maximum robust likelihood (MLR) estimation method. The results showed that the coach’s emotional competences are associated with autonomy-supportive climates (β = .15, p < .005). This climate is related to youth’s emotional competences (β = .30, p < .005) and lower emotional (β = -.27, p < .005), behavioural (β = -.51, p < .005), and social (β = -.33, p < .005) symptomatology. These results have important practical implications in designing interventions that promote coaches’ emotional competences given its association with autonomy-supportive climates, which in turn are related to athletes’ emotional competences and psychological well-being.

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Authors: Helen Cowie

The books reviewed here cover a wide gamut, but the common concern of the authors is to explore a variety of ways in which to resolve the pressures and huge anxieties that face children and young people today in all the countries of the world. First, in Cultivating Kindness: An Educator’s Guide, the author, John-Tyler Binfet, conveys his passion for the role of kindness in alleviating many of the interpersonal difficulties that are experienced every day in many different situations, causing unnecessary emotional pain. As he argues, teachers can cultivate this quality in their classrooms so that reaching out to others in distress becomes a regular mode of being towards one another. The second book, Cyberbullying and Online Harms: from Community to Campus, an international edited collection, takes a broader perspective by focusing on the disturbing phenomenon of cyberbullying and online abuse in schools and universities, with examples from different disciplines - the law, criminology, sociology, institutional and governmental policy-making, education, campaigning and political action, counselling-based approaches – on how to understand and address this worldwide problem. The third book, an edited collection, Arts Therapies and the Mental Health of Children and Young People: Contemporary Research, Theory and Practice, Volume 1, gives inspiring insights into the role of arts therapies - play, music, puppetry, dance movement, art & drama - in alleviating emotional distress in children and young people from different countries and with a range of particular issues in their lives, whether health-related, cultural, social or political. Each of these books will be of great interest to practitioners and researchers alike.