Classroom management is a central component of high-quality instruction with direct links to various social and academic student outcomes (Pianta & Hamre, 2009).Its central aim is to create a functioning learning environment by preventing undesirable student behaviours and enforcing desirable ones. This is especially relevant in “difficult” classes where teachers experience frequent student misbehaviour and unwillingness to cooperate (Hochweber et al., 2014). To achieve successful classroom management, four key strategies are required: Dealing with disruptions and discipline problems; effective use of time and increasing time on task; monitoring students and establishing clear rules; and routines (Praetorius et al., 2018).

Classroom management is an emotionally demanding task for teachers, especially if students exhibit frequent discipline problems. During lessons, teachers observe how different students respond to different classroom management strategies and adjust their behaviours accordingly. This learning process is characterized by discontinuities and setbacks, and teachers are not only challenged to manage difficult student behaviours but also their own negative emotions that occur during this process (Sutton, et al., 2009). Intense classroom conflicts can result in persistent latent emotional dispositions, such as fear or anger, that teachers are not directly aware of but that have a strong influence on their classroom management.

Psychoanalytic theory is used as one of the conceptual frameworks to define latent emotions. According to this line of research, salient emotions can be remembered and recalled by teachers and these emotions can be directly linked to individual teaching behaviours and habits. At the same time, teaching behaviours and habits also serve to suppress non-salient or latent emotions, such as anger or fear, that are subsequently acted out or projected outwards (Panksepp, 1999). Salient and latent emotions are both inherent in social interactions such as classroom teaching. In contrast to salient emotions, latent emotions can hardly be recalled by individuals; nevertheless, they exert a distinct pressure on the social interaction since they are tension-filled and sometimes contradictory with regard to the normative structure of the setting. They are rooted in difficult past experiences that can be triggered in the present moment (Bereswill et al., 2010).

While latent emotions and suppression of these emotions have typically been studied in relation to the formation of teacher identities and curricular trajectories, they have less often been studied as factors influencing classroom management. Given the existing empirical evidence for the relationship between teachers’ self-reported salient emotions and their classroom management (Mikyoung & van Vlack, 2018; Valente et al., 2020) , it might be hypothesized that latent emotions also influence the way in which teachers apply different classroom management strategies, and that these strategies also serve to regulate teachers’ negative latent emotions arising from difficult classroom experiences. Since secondary teachers are more likely to perceive stress from poor student attitudes and misbehaviour than primary teachers (Kavita & Hassan, 2018), they also more likely depend on this regulative function of classroom management. Taken together, these hypotheses concerning the relationship between latent teacher emotions and classroom management beg the following research question: How are classroom management strategies related to the latent emotions of a teacher in a secondary double classroom?

This paper reports on findings from an exploratory, video-based single case study in an urban secondary school in Germany. To answer the research question, one mathematics double lesson (95 minutes in total) was videotaped to conduct a depth-hermeneutical analysis of identified classroom management strategies and the corresponding latent teacher emotions. The results suggest that teachers use classroom management strategies not only to establish orderly lessons but also to regulate intense latent emotions that arise during classroom teaching.

To make the single case accessible for in-depth analysis and to capture the complexity of classroom teaching, video recording technology was used for the major data collection process. To assess additional social and emotional characteristics of the participating students, the study used an additional teacher rating questionnaire that covered different aspects of the teaching climate, such as discipline problems and emotionality. The author identified and coded scenes in which the teacher applied distinct classroom management strategies, such as dealing with disruptions and discipline problems, effective use of time and increasing time on task, monitoring students and establishing clear rules and routines. Finally, the present study used group-based depth-hermeneutics as a qualitative research method to investigate latent emotions that are excluded from or act beyond the level of the immediate social interaction and communication. Lorenzer (1986) introduced the concept of depth-hermeneutics as a way to apply processes of psychoanalysis to cultural research. According to Lorenzer, the psychoanalyst uses a particular mode of understanding—called scenic understanding—to perceive the patient’s culturally rejected patterns, forbidden yearnings, suppressed desires and emotions. Apart from obvious expressions and meta-communicative content, scenic understanding focusses on the psychoanalyst’s counter-transferences to the narrative expressions that are laid out by the patient during the consultation. From these counter-transferences, the psychoanalyst deduces theories about the patient’s unconscious interaction forms, (e.g., suppressed desires), that influence his everyday life and may produce intense ambivalence or even conflicts in his social relations. Different scholars have used Lorenzer’s theory to derive hermeneutic methodologies for research in the cultural and social sciences. The scenic interpretation procedure is most often organized in a group. What has been described as a dyadic psychoanalytical process is now arranged as a collective understanding process in which reactions and associations of different interpreters come together. The group discussion goes through several stages, from an open exchange of individual reactions to a debate on different interpretations and finally a critical reflection. The present study applied a depth-hermeneutic procedure that was introduced by König (2000). A group of 4 experienced researchers from disciplines such as educational science and psychology participated in the discussion on the videotaped double lesson. After the discussion, the researcher compared the group interpretations with the previously identified classroom management strategies. The insights from these comparisons made it possible to draw hypothetic inferences about the relationship between the teacher’s classroom management strategies and the specific latent emotions.

According to the ratings the teacher provided of the classroom climate prior to the observed double lesson, he experienced more frequent aggression and disciplinary problems in the class. Various scenes were identified in which the teacher used different classroom management strategies. All four key classroom management strategies were identified in the videotaped double lesson through the holistic coding process, but “monitoring students” was identified most frequently. The depth-hermeneutical group interpretations of these scenes indicated that certain interpersonal conflicts between the teacher and the students overshadowed their classroom interactions and provoked latent emotions that were not directly articulated. Although all three scenes were unique and involved different students, they had a certain feature in common. Namely, the teacher’s classroom management strategies demonstrated a subtle angriness. Fear of losing control or of not gaining recognition was also a very salient sentiment among the participants of the group discussion that could be linked to the teacher’s angriness. Taken together, the comprehensive interpretation of these scenes suggested that the angriness of the teacher’s classroom management strategies may have been caused by this latent fear of losing control of the class or not gaining recognition for his work. Hence, the observed classroom management strategies not only served to create an orderly double lesson but may have also helped the teacher to regulate his fear and anger. Regarding the central research question, we can hypothesize a self-regulative function of classroom management. The videotaped secondary mathematics teacher dealt with the latent fear of losing control or not gaining recognition by using certain classroom management strategies. Since he did not reflect on this fear and simply reacted to it, he became angry and may have missed chances to motivate his students and establish a constructive classroom dialogue.

Bereswill, M., Morgenroth, C., & Redman, P. (2010). Alfred Lorenzer and the depth-hermeneutic method. Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 15, 221-250. https://doi.org/10.1057/pcs.2010.12 Hochweber, J., Hosenfeld, I., & Klieme, E. (2014). Classroom composition, classroom management, and the relationship between student attributes and grades. Journal of Educational Psychology, 106(1), 289-300. http://doi.org/10.1037/a0033829 Kavita, K., & Hassan, N. (2018). Work Stress among Teachers: A Comparison between Primary and Secondary School Teachers. International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, Vol.7 (4). http://doi.org/10.6007/IJARPED/v7-i4/4802 König, H.D. (2000). Tiefenhermeneutik. In U. Flick, E. von Kardorff & I. Steinke (Eds.), Qualitative Forschung. Ein Handbuch (pp. 556–569). Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt. Lorenzer, A. (1986). Tiefenhermeneutische Kulturanalyse. In A. Lorenzer (Ed.), KulturAnalysen: Psychoanalytische Studien zur Kultur (pp.11-98). Frankfurt am Main: Fischer. Mikyoung, L., & van Vlack, S. (2018) Teachers’ emotional labour, discrete emotions, and classroom management self-efficacy, Educational Psychology, 38(5), 669-686. Panksepp, J. (1999) Emotions as viewed by psychoanalysis and neuroscience: An exercise in consilience, Neuropsychoanalysis, 1(1), 15-38. https://doi.org/10.1080/15294145.1999.10773241 Pianta, R. C., & Hamre, B. K. (2009). Conceptualization, measurement, and improvement of classroom processes: Standardized observation can leverage capacity. Educational Researcher, 38(2), 109-119. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X09332374 Praetorius, A.-K, Klieme, E., Herbert, B., & Pinger, P. (2018). Generic dimensions of teaching quality: The German framework of Three Basic Dimensions. ZDM: The International Journal on Mathematics Education, 50(3), 407-426. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11858-018-0918-4 Sutton, R. E., Mudrey-Camino, R., & Knight, C. C. (2009). Teachers' emotion regulation and classroom management. Theory Into Practice, 48(2), 130-137. https://doi.org/10.1080/00405840902776418 Valente, S., Lourenço, A. A., Alves, P., & Dominguez-Lara, S. (2020). The role of teacher’s emotional intelligence for efficacy and classroom management. Revista CES Psicología, 13(2), 18–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.21615/cesp.13.2.2