Where do the emotions of teachers in prison come from?

Teaching is increasingly becoming an emotional labor, particularly in contexts involving students with special educational needs. According to the rules in work in Europe, every prison must give inmates access to educational programs which are as complete as possible. In this specific context, teachers are likely to be confronted with moments with strong emotional connotations that may require an effort to control their emotions. Significant moments can also generate positive emotions, in so far as the teacher in prison has a special status. This study aimed to analyze the inducers of positive and negative emotions felt by teachers during the most significant moments of their career in prison. We adopted a socio-cognitive approach to emotion, which emphasizes the importance of the environment in the emergence of emotion. We distributed an online questionnaire to teachers working in prison via the national prison education authorities. Thirty-four teachers volunteered to participate. They taught everywhere in France, in all types of prison establishments. After providing us some socio-demographic information (age, sex, school subject, teaching experience and type of establishments), they told us about the most significant positive or negative moments they experienced as teachers in prison (incident critique). The 133 critical incidents collected have been inductively categorized with regard to the positive and negative emotional inducers reported by the teachers. This method, based on grounded theory approach, honored the criteria attesting to the quality of qualitative research (credibility, originality, resonance and usefulness). The results highlighted five categories of positive emotional inducers: (1) Success/performance of inmates despite their difficulties encountered; (2) Building positive relationships in the classroom setting; (3) Inmates’ interest in knowledge and culture; (4) Success of an event/exercise proposed by the teacher; (5) Acknowledgment of “normality” of inmate during the class despite detention. Negative emotional inducers were divided into four categories: (1) Manifestations of violence/disturbances by inmates; (2) Personal inmates’ difficulties or criminal acts committed by inmates; (3) Disinterest in the course shown by inmates; (4) Atmosphere of detention and/or prison rules. These results are discussed in two parts. On the one hand, they highlighted the emotional specificities of teacher work in prison. The second refers to the transversal elements observed within the critical incidents in regard to the previous studies on the teachers’ emotions. We conclude by bringing out the challenges of revaluing the place of teachers’ emotional labor within initial and continuing training, especially in relation to students with special educational needs.