| In this dissertation, I position schools as social and emotional arenas, embedded within powerful societal and educational discourses about emotion, relationships, and learning. Based on in-depth interviews and participant observation at New Haven High School, I present a qualitative study of students' and teachers' emotional experiences related to learning and being at school. Guided by a reflexive methodology, key reflective sensibilities emerged as meaningful when analyzing discourses: social constructionism, organizational socialization, and feminist-poststructuralism. Specifically, theoretical frameworks for the major themes were crafted using structuration, narrative, dialectical, boundary-management, emotion socialization, instructional, learning, and critical theories.;Results coalesce around four key themes which include analysis of (1) how emotion shapes teaching and learning; (2) how discursive and material structures and practices shape emotion rules and experience in schooling; (3) the ways in which peers groups, close friendships, and romantic relationships evoke, mediate, and socialize emotion; and (4) the influence of home life on students' emotional socialization and well-being at school. The impact of dualistic thinking on school life is discussed within each of these themes. Specifically, the consequences of viewing emotion as separate from reason, and public spheres as separate from private spheres are examined.;This project attempts to disrupt dispassionate views of schools that ignore the emotional realities of teaching and learning, and, conversely, explore ways in which emotion both enables and constrains students' abilities to learn and thrive at school. In so doing, I draw attention to taken-for-granted ideologies and practices shaping emotional experience, and interrogate the ramifications of dominant societal and educational discourses about emotion. Of particular importance are the ways in which these discourses pervade student life and guide students' and teachers' decisions about how to manage their emotions at school. I enter into perennial discussions of the role of emotion in the public sphere to argue that emotion should not be viewed as antithetical to reason, but should be considered a form of reasoning. Moreover, I seek to dislocate clear boundaries between students' public and private lives calling instead for recognition of the dynamic interplay between public and private spheres that becomes evident though the medium of emotion. Ultimately, I contend that we sacrifice deep connection with and understanding of students in educational organizations by striving to create emotionally neutral domains for learning detached from the broader landscape of students' lives. I call for new emotional scripts that could enlarge possible subject positions for stakeholders, and enhance learning in the classroom. Contributions to theoretical and practical knowledge, limitations of the study, and suggestions for future research are also discussed. |
