The emotional geographies of a university English language center: Institutional relations, exclusion, and vulnerability

Abstract

In the field of applied linguistics, language teacher emotion (LTE) has gained currency with the recognition that teaching is an emotional practice rather than merely a technical activity. Existing literature on English language teacher emotion has largely captured how teachers regulate and manage their emotions through the concept of ‘emotional labor’. However, research on teacher emotion that examines the interplay between teachers, institutional contexts, and society in shaping emotional experiences remains scarce. Addressing this gap, the present case study, with a ‘social interactionist’ perspective, examines the negative emotional experiences of English language tutors through Hargreaves' framework of ‘emotional geography’. Data were generated from the English Language Center of a private university in Bangladesh through semi-structured interviews with six tutors and naturalistic observation over a one-year period. The analysis of the five dimensions of emotional geography (i.e., physical, professional, moral, political, and sociocultural) illustrates how interactions with colleagues, students, and administration generate negative emotions. The findings further reveal tutors' struggles to achieve legitimate peripheral participation within the institutional community, alongside their experiences of vulnerability. The study concludes with implications for teacher development and institutional policymaking.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Acta Psychologica, 2026 · DOI ↗