Topic

This ethnographic case study examines the intersection of non-teaching workload, emotion labour, and professional identity among rural English teachers in China. While existing research on language teacher emotion labour has predominantly focused on classroom-based sources such as pedagogy and student interactions, the emotional consequences of non-teaching work remain insufficiently understood despite recent policy recognition of this burden. This study addresses this gap by investigating how excessive non-teaching duties—including administrative tasks, student management responsibilities, mandatory training, and community service obligations—generate distinct forms of emotion labour that fundamentally reshape rural English teachers' professional identities.

Research Questions

The study investigates two interconnected questions: (1) How does non-teaching work generate emotion labour for rural English teachers? and (2) How does this emotion labour shape rural English teachers' identity? These questions are particularly significant given China's 2025 Ministry of Education policy addressing teachers' non-educational and non-teaching burdens, highlighting a critical gap between scholarly priorities and institutional realities in language teacher education.

Objective

This study aims to extend Benesch's (2017) emotion labour framework beyond classroom interactions to the often-invisible non-teaching duties that saturate teachers' daily work. By focusing on two early-career English teachers in a rural Chinese secondary school over five months of fieldwork, the research reveals how rural English teachers navigate emotion labour arising from contradictory institutional roles, age-based hierarchies, and future-oriented career anxiety. The study demonstrates how these emotional experiences drive the erosion of English language educator identity and the reconstruction of pragmatist-survival identities, offering critical insights into the structural conditions shaping professional development in marginalised educational contexts.

Theoretical Framework

The study is grounded in a poststructuralist perspective that conceptualises emotion labour and language teacher identity as socioculturally constructed, dynamic, and embedded in power relations rather than as internal, static traits. Drawing on Benesch's (2017, 2018, 2020) critical reconceptualisation, emotion labour is theorised as "the tensions produced by the clash between teachers' training/beliefs and institutional regulation." From this lens, both what constitutes non-teaching work and how it is valued are shaped through discourse, power relations, and institutional narratives.

Language teacher identity is theorised as dynamic subjectivity—multiple, constantly in a state of becoming, and produced through discourse and social interaction (Zembylas, 2003, 2005). Consistent with the poststructuralist turn in English language teaching, identity shifts as teachers move across contexts and as wider discourses about language, education, and professionalism change. Critically, emotions are not simply consequences of identity but provide the conditions through which teachers make sense of their work and construct meanings within professional contexts.

Central to this framework is the mutual constitution of emotion labour and identity. Teacher identity work is an emotionally charged process where teachers grapple with tensions, conflicts, and struggles as part of professional practice. Performing emotion labour involves identity negotiation, making emotion labour the mechanism through which identity is both contested and reconstructed. The study positions non-teaching workload not merely as a practical burden but as a productive force that continuously shapes what it means to be an English teacher in rural China, revealing how structural pressures create conditions for sustained identity transformation rather than momentary tensions.

This theoretical positioning allows the study to demonstrate how emotion labour and language teacher identity operate as mutually constitutive processes under structural constraints unique to rural educational contexts.

Research Design Underpinned by the constructivist-interpretivist paradigm, this study adopts an ethnographic case study design that combines the depth of ethnographic enquiry with the focus of a bounded case. This approach is well-suited for examining the participants' daily non-teaching work and emotional experiences while situating the case within broader cultural and institutional contexts. Through immersive observation and interviews in the participants' natural settings, the study generates "thick description" to explore how non-teaching work, emotion labour, and identity (re)construction unfold within rural school contexts. Research Context and Participants The study was conducted at School G, a public boarding secondary school in Jiangxi Province, China, over five months (February to June 2025). Two focal participants, Coco and Lucy (pseudonyms), were purposively selected as information-rich cases. Coco has four years of teaching experience and serves as English teacher for two Grade 7 classes, psychology teacher, and Director of the Youth League Committee. Lucy has five years of experience teaching two Grade 8 classes while serving as psychology teacher and Director of Academic Affairs. Both participants' career trajectories reflect common patterns among rural English teachers who chose teaching positions more for job security than passion. Data Collection Multiple data sources were collected to ensure comprehensive understanding. Ten formal semi-structured interviews were conducted monthly with each participant (approximately one hour each) in Chinese, exploring daily work tasks, emotional experiences, and role perceptions. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. Numerous informal conversations complemented formal interviews, with detailed notes integrated into field notes. Thirty-four digital weekly journal entries captured participants' narratives of significant emotional events, guided by open-ended questions about teaching and administrative work. Forty-two events were observed including administrative meetings, classrooms, teachers' offices, and school activities, with the researcher adopting a participant-observer role. Field notes totaled approximately 16,000 words documenting interactions and emotional displays. Data Analysis Data analysis followed Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA) using Braun and Clarke's (2019) six-phase framework. The iterative process involved familiarization, line-by-line inductive coding with deductive elements, pattern formation, and recursive review across the entire dataset. Initial coding produced six candidate themes, which were refined through examining internal homogeneity and external heterogeneity, ultimately yielding three final themes. Member-checking with participants and co-authors ensured contextual accuracy and validated thematic interpretations.

Findings The study reveals three interconnected forms of emotion labour arising from non-teaching work that fundamentally reshape rural English teachers' professional identities. First, institutional role conflicts create tension between teachers' pedagogical values and administrative demands. Participants were required to prioritize non-teaching requirements over teaching commitments, with Lucy spending approximately 70% of her time on administrative duties. This conflict necessitates continuous emotional regulation as teachers navigate competing institutional demands, leading to the erosion of their English language educator identity. Both teachers described pedagogical decline—shifting from carefully designed lessons to minimal textbook assignments—and reconstructed themselves as "administrators who happen to speak English" rather than English educators. Second, masking labour emerges within age-based hierarchical structures where early-career teachers occupy administrative positions yet lack informal authority. Participants had to conceal frustration, suppress formal authority, and perform strategic incompetence when interacting with senior colleagues. This performative identity work, described as "deceptive and humiliating," constructs subordinated administrative identities that contradict their institutional roles, intensifying emotional costs beyond pedagogical demands. Third, future-oriented anxiety stems from strategic career investment under constrained structures. Rural teachers pragmatically adopt administrative roles to secure professional title promotion, reconstructing themselves as survival-oriented pragmatists rather than passionate educators. However, this generates chronic anxiety because administrative credentials function as context-dependent capital, valuable only within specific schools and potentially worthless upon transfer to county or urban schools. This study extends emotion labour scholarship beyond classroom interactions to non-teaching contexts, demonstrating how excessive administrative burdens operate as productive forces reshaping professional identity. The findings carry important implications for supporting rural English teachers through balanced workload distribution, protected preparation time, and professional development programs that build collective capacity to navigate emotion labour and advocate for systemic reform.

Core Theoretical Framework: Benesch, S. (2017). Emotions and English language teaching: Exploring teachers' emotion labour. Routledge. Benesch, S. (2018). Emotions as agency: Feeling rules, emotion labour, and English language teachers' decision-making. System, 79, 60–69. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2018.03.015 Benesch, S. (2020). Emotions and activism: English language teachers' emotion labor as responses to institutional power. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 17(1), 26–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/15427587.2020.1716194 Zembylas, M. (2003). Emotions and teacher identity: A poststructural perspective. Teachers and Teaching, 9(3), 213–238. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540600309378 Zembylas, M. (2005). Beyond teacher cognition and teacher beliefs: The value of the ethnography of emotions in teaching. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 18(4), 465–487. https://doi.org/10.1080/09518390500137642 Empirical Studies on Language Teacher Emotion Labour and Identity: Aminifard, Y., Sahragard, R., Alimorad, Z., & Pentón Herrera, L. J. (2025). 'I want to become an IELTS teacher': Emotion labour and professional identity disillusionment in a novice Iranian public school EFL teacher. The Language Learning Journal, 53(3), 389–401. https://doi.org/10.1080/09571736.2025.2451916 Bao, J., Nejadghanbar, H., & Feng, D. (2025). "I can't have it both ways": Emotion-laden tensions, emotion labour, and identity constructions of female English language teachers in Chinese higher education. TESOL Quarterly, tesq.70021. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.70021 Nazari, M., & Karimpour, S. (2022). The role of emotion labour in English language teacher identity construction: An activity theory perspective. System, 107, 102811. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2022.102811 Song, J. (2016). Emotions and language teacher identity: Conflicts, vulnerability, and transformation. TESOL Quarterly, 50(3), 631–654. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.312 Non-teaching Workload: Zhong, J., & Wang, D. (2025). Upward responsibility and downward accountability: Characteristics and causes of non-teaching workload on Chinese rural teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 156, 104938. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2025.104938 Methodology: Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2019). Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 11(4), 589–597. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2019.1628806 Pink, S., Fors, V., Lanzeni, D., Duque, M., Sumartojo, S., & Strengers, Y. (2022). Design ethnography: Research, responsibilities, and futures. Routledge.