Las competencias emocionales de las profesoras y el desarrollo socio-afectivo en la educación infantil. Una perspectiva émica y sociocultural

Résumé

There is an increasing interest on the role of emotions in educational processes. Much of the emotional development occurs at an early age and the school presents itself as one of the major socialization and development contexts. I propose this thesis from a sociocultural perspective that allows a holistic approach that reflects well life within the classroom taking into account the role of others (teachers and peers) as well as culture in the process of development, and facilitates connection between theory and practice. This thesis is composed of two studies, a first study with a descriptive phenomenological design in which I collected the voices of seventeen teachers of early childhood education around their ideas and experiences about the role of emotional competencies in their professional activity. And a second study in which I did an ethnography of almost three courses accompanying two teachers of a center and its groups from the age of three to six years to be able to describe in depth their practice. The results of study one show how teachers are intuitively aware of the importance of the emotional dimension of the classroom. Based on these, results of study two allow us to observe the coherence between teacher’s discourse and practice. Following two teachers I describe how they approach the teaching of emotions in a natural way integrated within daily routines. In this way of dealing with the emotional dimension of the classroom appeared several relevant themes. Among others, the habitual way of being in the classroom of teachers, how they organize the structure of the classroom to favor relationships, how are the relationships with children and the rest of the educational community and the socialization strategies of emotions that teachers use throughout the day. In addition, in the results I include children’s changes along time in terms of recognition, expression, regulation and empathy as well as teacher’s experiences and reflections around their practice. Finally, I discuss the implications of the these results and future lines of research derived from them. Keywords: Emotional Competencies, Socio-Cultural Perspective, Qualitative inquiry, Early Childhood Education.