This study explores how ecological dynamics affect teachers' emotions and how teachers regulate emotions within the ecological context of multicultural classrooms in Turkiye. While diversity promotes integration, it also presents challenges, including increased workload, time-management issues, lack of training, ideological conflicts, value discrepancies, and emotional tension for teachers. These can cause stress, burnout, and negative emotions. The link between teachers' emotional exhaustion and students' stress (Oberle & Schonert-Richl, 2016) and the connection between student and teacher well-being (Frenzel et al., 2018) highlight the importance of teachers' emotions in multicultural classrooms. In refugee education, educators' emotions are also vital in multicultural classrooms, especially as migrant numbers grow, as in Turkiye.  Teachers’ emotional skills are key to effective teaching; supporting their mental health improves resilience and helps traumatized refugee students (Hargreaves, 1998; Moldenhawer, 2023; Oplatka, 2004).

Turkiye has seen a significant increase in immigrants, mainly from Syria and other nations, driven by ongoing conflicts, leading to abrupt policy adjustments in recent years. Turkiye's migration policy is shaped by its geopolitical position, which limits immigration from European communities and from Turks. However, recent conflicts and shifts in Turkish foreign policy have led it to become a major refugee destination, especially after the 2005 National Action Plan (NAP). Civil wars in Iraq and Syria caused peak migration in 2018-19. Turkiye manages crises arising from socio-cultural changes, COVID-19, and earthquakes, while Türkiye has assumed the role of a filter for EU countries, providing humanitarian assistance to people under 'Temporary Protection' rather than 'refugee' status. Correspondingly, educators are experiencing increasing responsibilities and shifting classroom demographics (Arar et al., 2025), which affect their emotional well-being (Hargreaves, 2004; Wang et al., 2025). The socio-historical context of education in Türkiye emphasizes that socio-cultural factors, such as policies, reforms, demographics, and cultural influences, are instrumental in shaping these emotions, which are situated within the educational environment, questioning the complex relationship between emotions in the classroom (Savina & Fulton, 2024). Accordingly, this qualitative study aims to investigate teachers' emotional experiences in multicultural classrooms in Turkiye by integrating Schultz's the Nested Systems Model rooted in Ecological Dynamic Systems Theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1976; Schutz,  2014; Savina & Fulton, 2024), which considers macro-level socio-ecological layers, with Gross's emotional regulation process(1998a, 1998b; 2015), which focuses on micro-level regulation strategies. These frameworks helped us to understand teachers’ emotions and emotion regulation processes, emphasizing how cultural influences and sensitivity are effecting factors in their emotion regulation. This study uniquely highlights teachers' emotional experiences in multicultural classrooms, considering the social, historical, and cultural dynamics nested within the school context through the lens of Ecological Dynamic Systems. 

We utilised qualitative research to map teachers' emotional journeys in multicultural classes, investigating their emotions and emotion regulation processes through in-depth interviews and revealing the professional and socio-ecological layers that shaped their experiences (Merriam, 2009). We collected data in three schools in Ankara in 2022, where 10 teachers had volunteered to teach newcomers since Syrians began their education, utilising snowball sampling (Frankenberg, 2009; Milner IV, 2021; Welsh et al., 2020). The duration teachers spent at the same school was significant because of their shared exposure to changes. We collected qualitative data through semi-structured, open-ended interviews, along with observations and field notes. We utilised interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), supplemented by discourse and narrative analyses, to comprehensively describe the fundamental structures underlying human experiences (Pietkiewicz & Smith, 2014), which is well-suited to examining migration, cultural and ethnic identities, social roles, and perceptions of various phenomena (Thorne, 2000). Interview data were transcribed and read in detail, along with field notes, to obtain a holistic perspective. The data were systematically analyzed following Marshall and Rossman's (2011) four stages: data were organized, then categories and themes were identified through coding. We interpreted the data within social, historical, and cultural frameworks of emotion, considering alternative explanations for the context. To ensure reliability, experts were consulted during the coding process.

Research findings indicate that despite experiencing negative emotions, including hopelessness, pessimism, stress, fear of failure, and helplessness, teachers fulfilled educational goals and promoted positive social-behavioral changes in their class (Aldrup et al., 2024; Frenzel et al., 2018), and dedicated their emotional labor by regulating their emotions toward educational objectives (Wang et al., 2025). Participants' emotional regulation is influenced by their goals, beliefs, and standards, which together form a common framework. The strong central education system and legal responsibilities align their focus. Turkiye’s migration policies, cultural dynamics, and socio-historical context shape the ecological focus, thereby influencing teachers’ goals and beliefs, which, in turn, affect their emotional experiences. From the ecological dynamics systems perspective, although negative emotions arise during emotion regulation in this episode, both teachers' emotion regulation and their emotions are shaped by the nested context. Even in the face of negative emotions, they acknowledged the necessity of transformation within the system, balancing emotion regulation with policy implementation. Teachers initially engaged in internal regulation because they believed that displaying negative emotions was inappropriate from cultural, social, and professional standpoints; in external regulation, they tended to rely on surface acting to suppress their feelings; and in emotional expression, they tended to rely on surface acting to suppress their feelings. Throughout this process, the most common methods of emotional regulation included seeking help and collaborative problem-solving (Savina & Fulton, 2024). During these challenging, mandatory periods, it becomes evident that emotional labor is crucial to achieving the practical objectives of policies that rely on emotion regulation. Therefore, it can be concluded that teachers' emotions are significantly influenced by the community's socio-ecological factors.

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