Relational perplexities of today’s teachers: social-emotional competence perspective

ABSTRACT

A major part of the perplexing instances in teachers’ work seem to deal with relationships. However, little is known about the role of social and emotional competence (SEC) in teachers’ relationships. This study examined perplexing relational situations through Finnish primary teachers’ stories, the strategies that teachers used to manage the perplexities they faced, and whether those strategies reflected aspects of teacher SEC. Narrative categorical analysis resulted in colleagues- and other stakeholders-related, students-related, and parents-related perplexities. Teachers managed perplexing situations by using and developing their SEC. The results indicate that teachers would need more tools to develop their SEC, especially their ability to recognise and regulate their emotions to manage stressful situations.

KEYWORDS:

• Social and emotional competence
• teacher work
• perplexity
• relationships

Introduction

Teachers’ work has changed rapidly over recent decades, and teachers all over the world face the heterogeneity of classrooms, students with diverse needs and backgrounds, as well as increased duties besides actual teaching. Naturally, there is a lot of pressure on teachers, and recent research interest has focused on, for instance, teachers’ daily work, teacher competence, teaching quality and the relationship of these with student achievement (e.g. Klassen et al., 2018; Körkkö et al., 2022; Metsäpelto et al., 2021). Despite contextual differences, similar issues seem to be regarded as perplexing from teachers’ viewpoints, for instance, issues related to behaviour management, individualisation of learning, collaborating with parents and separation of private and working life (Buchanan et al., 2013; Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture, 2022; Sulis et al., 2022; van der Want et al., 2018). As the teaching profession is highly relational, wherein teachers participate in multiple social processes in school life, a major part of the perplexing instances in their work seems to deal with relationships. Moreover, the findings of previous studies indicate that the nature of perplexities has multiple impacts on teachers’ work, job satisfaction, attitudes, motivation, and willingness to stay in the profession as well as on the learning of their students (Buchanan et al., 2013; Plunkett & Dyson, 2011; Schuck et al., 2005). Therefore, it is our view that teachers’ social and emotional competence (SEC) is essential when they manage perplexing situations in the different relationships in which they engage in their work.

Teachers’ good SEC encompasses a wide variety of skills related to relationships. Socially and emotionally competent teachers, as Jennings and Greenberg (2009) note, can create a classroom atmosphere, including positive relationships between teachers and students, instruction that builds on students’ strengths and students’ prosocial behaviour. Low levels of conflict and disruptive behaviour are characteristics of an ideal classroom environment that is dependent on teacher SEC (La Paro & Pianta, 2003). It has also been suggested that good SEC protects teachers from emotional exhaustion and its negative consequences, such as teacher burnout and a deteriorating classroom climate (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). Thus far, research on SEC has focused mainly on childhood and adolescence (Hamre et al., 2012; Taylor et al., 2017) and primary student teachers’ SEC (e.g. Tynjälä et al., 2016). Previous studies have focused on interrelations between school-based SEC programmes and students’ social and emotional skills, academic performance, attitudes and behaviour (Corcoran et al., 2018; Taylor et al., 2017). Research on teachers in the field is scarce and limited to certain study settings, such as studying relationships between teacher SEC and students’ social, emotional, and academic outcomes (Hamre & Pianta, 2001; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009) and the influence of teacher SEC on teacher well-being (Darling-Hammond, 2001). In a more recent study, Aspelin and Eklöf (2022) examined teacher relational competence through in-depth analyses of teacher-student interaction and suggested that teachers’ relational competence should be examined as a relational phenomenon. Particularly, the role of teacher SEC in teachers’ relationships with parents, colleagues and other stakeholders is under-researched. Based on the relationships’ integral role in perplexities, there is a need to look closer at those relationships from the perspective of perplexities that teachers experience at work, as well as what kind of SEC those perplexities require.

This study examines perplexing relational situations through Finnish teachers’ stories. Moreover, this study investigates the strategies that teachers use to manage the perplexities they face and whether these strategies reflect at least some aspects of teacher SEC. Drawing from the studies of Dewey (1933) and Mezirow (1981), by perplexities we refer to puzzling and possible challenging situations in which teachers’ current knowledge and skills are challenged and which drive teachers to reflect on situations and search for alternative solutions. Thus, situations that are also emotionally laden form a foundation for new learning and growth (Dodd et al., 2022). We base this work on the notion that puzzling instances in teacher work, as well as how teachers use SEC to manage them, are context dependent. For instance, a lack of collegial support and inconsistent disciplinary procedures may exacerbate teachers’ perplexities with behaviour management, even though teachers’ SEC is sufficient (Buchanan et al., 2013). Understanding teachers’ daily work makes it possible to address both pre-service and in-service teacher education from new perspectives to support teacher professional development. The following question guided the study: What kinds of relational perplexities do teachers face in their work? Conclusions are drawn about what kind of social and emotional competence is needed in teacher work in Finland and worldwide.

Theoretical background

Perplexities in teachers’ work

Teaching-related perplexities have been studied through teacher attrition and retention, as well as through the examination of certain situations in which teachers experience difficulties at work. Research on primary and secondary school teacher attrition and retention indicates that factors behind staying or leaving in the profession relate to individual and contextual factors, as well as the teacher identity-making process. Some of these factors include the quality of pre-service teacher education, satisfaction with existing working conditions, early career teacher support, mentoring and informal support that teachers offer to each other (Buchanan et al., 2013; DeAngelis et al., 2013; Kelly et al., 2019). Lack of support from colleagues and principals as well as lack of mentoring at the beginning of a career have been found to predict teacher attrition. Teacher motivation and emotional burnout also play an essential role in teacher job satisfaction (e.g. Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2011).

However, the most important working conditions affecting teacher attrition seem to relate to workload and teacher relationships with students and parents (Janssen et al., 2012; Kelly et al., 2019; Lindqvist & Nordänger, 2016; Sulis et al., 2022). Students seem to be a source of both joy and fulfilment and of emotional exhaustion for teachers (Sulis et al., 2022). Previous studies have shown that several factors might influence parent–teacher relationships, such as geographic distance, sociocultural differences (including values and language), trust between teachers and parents, willingness to cooperate, interest in school-related matters on the part of parents and parents’ educational levels (Janssen et al., 2012; Ozmen et al., 2016; Uitto et al., 2021).

Teacher SEC and its impacts on teaching-related perplexities

In this study, teacher SEC is defined as a set of practical social and emotional skills that teachers need in their work, such as listening skills, ability to take others’ perspectives and collaboration skills (Murakami et al., 2009). We define SEC with the help of a widely used definition by the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (2008b). Accordingly, five major competences define SEC: self-awareness, social awareness, responsible decision-making, self-management and relationship skills. Self-awareness refers to the ability to understand one’s own emotions, attitudes and values and how they affect teacher behaviour in different settings. Social awareness means understanding and empathising with others’ viewpoints, particularly those from various backgrounds, cultures and circumstances. Responsible decision-making can be defined as a teacher’s ability to make responsible decisions after carefully weighing their potential effects on both them and others. Self-management refers to the ability to manage one’s emotions and behaviour, whereas relationship skills are the ability to maintain healthy and supportive relationships.

SEC is understood to be situation- and context-specific, manifested partly differently across contexts; therefore, its impact on teacher thinking and teaching behaviours, as well as possible student outcomes, may vary according to national and cultural settings (Fives & Buehl, 2014; Klassen et al., 2018). Moreover, this study assumes that to manage perplexing relational situations, teachers also use many other skills, such as their pedagogical and practical knowledge, creativity and problem-solving skills. This assumption is strengthened by the fact that the SEC is closely related to other competence areas; thus, different skills are used and developed simultaneously (Tynjälä et al., 2016).

Teachers are key figures in modelling favourable social and emotional behaviour to their students and handling classroom conflicts. Research on the relationships between teacher SEC and the key components of students’ social and emotional development is still scarce (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009). However, findings of previous studies indicate that emotionally warm relationships between teachers and students promote students’ prosocial behaviour, learning – supporting classroom climate and students’ connectivity to school, which then together positively affect students’ social and emotional development and academic achievement during the entire study path (Hamre & Pianta, 2001; Hughes et al., 2001). Socially and emotionally competent teachers can understand their own emotions and the emotions of their students, which helps teachers to teach self-regulation skills to students, maintain on-task behaviour and, through that, manage classroom behaviour better when teachers do not have to use punishment on a regular basis. Finally, teacher SEC, especially the ability to understand and manage one’s emotions, is related to teacher well-being and the stress felt (Darling-Hammond, 2001). Teachers struggling with emotional regulation are at the biggest risk of contributing to a poor classroom climate, which may then cause negative emotions and result in burnout, including teacher emotional exhaustion, depersonalisation and lack of personal accomplishment (Chan, 2003).

Methods

This study followed a narrative approach (Lieblich et al., 1998). Based on the foundation of narrative research, teachers’ stories are considered to reveal teachers’ life experiences (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Connelly & Clandinin, 1994), including the complexities in teachers’ work (Lyons, 2007). Those stories are shaped and reshaped by contextual factors and social interaction and thus reveal something about teachers’ working conditions; therefore, teacher working life and its relations can be widely examined through stories.

Participants and data collection

The data of this study were collected as part of the project ‘The Unpacking and Redefining Changing Relationships in Teachers’ Work (RELA)’ (Research Council of Finland), which focused on exploring teachers’ changing work and its meanings for different relationships in basic education. The aim of the project guiding the data collection was to collect teachers’ narratives of their work and of the various relationships teachers have at work. Twenty-five teachers participated in narrative biographical interviews that were carried out by the project’s researchers and research assistants in the years 2020 and 2021. At the time of the interviews, the teachers were working in the primary or lower-secondary school levels as primary school teachers, subject teachers or special education teachers. The teachers’ ages and previous working experiences varied. Moreover, they were working in different geographical areas, mainly either in northern or southern Finland. The teachers were recruited via a call to participate in the research advertised on different social media platforms, using the researchers’ personal contacts and the snowball method. The interviews were narrative and semi-structured in nature, including open questions focusing on the teachers’ work today and the changes the teachers recognised in their work. Most of the interviews were carried out online via Microsoft Teams or Zoom to minimise personal contact because of the Covid-19 pandemic and for practical reasons, such as geographical distance. The interviews lasted from approximately one to one and a half hours. The interview audios were transcribed later by research assistants or interviewers.

For this paper, four interviews were chosen for closer analysis to examine teachers’ relational perplexities which is the focus of this paper. The four interviews were selected because they represent rich and in-depth relational perplexities in teachers’ work, and they also encompass teachers’ different teaching fields, as well as different amounts of teaching experience. Moreover, the relational perplexities identified in these four interviews resonate with the entire data set to a great extent. Table 1 displays the participants’ demographic information. Names are pseudonyms chosen by the researchers.

Table 1. Participants’ information.

Name	Teacher status	Years of teaching experience
Essi	Subject teacher	5 years
Asta	Primary school teacher	10–15 years
Päivi	Primary school teacher	18 years
Jutta	Special education teacher	0–5 years

Data analysis

Data analysis followed the steps of the narrative approach suggested by Lieblich et al. (1998), aiming to analyse each interview independently and then identify common categories across the data. Following Lieblich et al.’s (Lieblich et al., 1998) guidelines, the analysis began with a holistic reading of all four interviews, through which it was possible to extract the data examples containing relational perplexities. The second phase of the analysis was categorical analysis, which included one-by-one coding of the extracts. This included comparing the codes between the interviews and creating content categories that encompassed all the interviews. As usual, in the process of categorising, some categories overlapped. The first author conducted the preliminary analysis. However, the findings, analysis, interpretations and final conclusions were discussed among both authors. Thus, peer debriefing and research triangulation were used to increase the reliability and trustworthiness of the findings.

The categorical analysis resulted in identifying perplexities in three key relationships in teachers’ work: 1) colleagues- and other stakeholders-related, 2) parents-related and 3) students-related perplexities.

Ethical considerations

The study adhered to the standards established by the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity for the responsible conduct of research (2023). All participants were informed of the study’s objectives and the methods used to gather the data. Information on data and data protection were sent to the participants before the interviews via email. The consent was given orally during the interviews. The consent information outlined the study’s details, participant involvement, assurances of anonymity and the right to withdraw at any moment before participants agreed to participate. The participants are identified in the research report only by pseudonyms to protect their anonymity, which was ensured by removing all personal information and specifics from the data.

Results

Relationships play a significant role in the perplexities revealed through teacher stories. The teachers talked most about perplexities concerning relationships with colleagues and other stakeholders. Students were the second most addressed category, and parents were the third most addressed category. In some cases, different relationships seemed to interact with others; for instance, the way a teacher handled student misbehaviour might have been affected by the teachers’ ability to get support from a special education teacher.

Next, we present our findings according to the three themes of relational perplexities.

Relational perplexities with colleagues and other stakeholders

A common theme that crossed all four interviews was the perplexities concerning collegial work with other teachers. The teachers talked about a lack of collegiality or difficulties in carrying out functional co-teaching with others in their present or previous schools. Asta and Jutta, both relatively newly qualified teachers, had experienced being underestimated by their colleagues due to having had limited work experience. Essi explains an experience from her previous school when she needed to work mainly independently when teaching Swedish:

I had this other close colleague who taught Swedish with me. During my first year of work, no tests, nothing like that was shared or done together, but I did everything by myself … the tasks were not shared, or the skills were not shared…or sometimes but quite seldom.

According to Asta, the lack of collegial collaboration and interaction makes teachers’ work lonely and burdening today. In her present school, Asta experienced difficulties when collaborating with her school’s special education teacher. She found that a special education teacher had no skills to manage students’ behavioural issues and therefore could not help her in a way that would have enhanced students’ learning. Moreover, she had experienced that a special education teacher had tried to interfere with her way of doing her work, which she had found offensive. She had told the principal about this and after that, the relationship between her and a special education teacher changed:

They started advising me on what I should do in front of the class, I got very upset about that. I went to tell the principal and this teacher did not dare to come to my class for probably a couple of months. They would just come to the door … Now we are doing just fine, but they are not used to the cooperation at all … no skills for dealing with students with behavioural disorders, so of course, they would not be able to support me to the extent that I would need.

Asta interpreted that a reason for her colleague’s behaviour was that they did not consider her to be a competent teacher due to her limited teaching experience:

What has changed (since she changed her working place), what I have always had in the past, is that my work has been appreciated as it is. Now another teacher assumes that because I have just graduated [from teacher education], I am not very experienced. So, a colleague begins to advise me on a matter that they cannot manage themselves.

Asta’s extracts illustrate that in this situation, she showed relationship skills as well as self-awareness and self-management. She was able to manage her emotions and was willing to collaborate with a special education teacher even though collaboration was difficult. She recognised her limitations in solving the situation and asked for help from a principal.

Päivi highlighted the importance of functional co-teaching in the execution of inclusive education and learning activities in open school spaces. She found that co-teaching is difficult if teachers have very different personalities or ways of working. She had experienced difficulties in one music class when she noticed her colleague’s struggles with managing students and could not interfere with teaching or did not know how to do this in the best possible way:

Maybe it is just like that when you must work with teachers who do this very differently … recently today I was in a music class as a co-teacher in the same school where there were a lot of students, and the principal knew that there were quite a lot of challenges there in the music classes. But when you see it in a few minutes, it is about the teacher that does not take over that space but lets the students talk and jump. It is difficult to be in that situation when you see that maybe they do not have control over this situation and with a few tricks they could change it for the better.

Päivi’s experience with a colleague during a class depicts how Päivi was tactful in the situation showing respect and empathy towards her colleague. Thus, she showed her social awareness and relationship skills as well as responsible decision-making when she did not interfere with her colleague.

Jutta talked about the team-teaching culture of her current school and saw it as essential that the principal use pedagogical leadership to encourage the staff to collaborate. Jutta had experienced some difficulties with team teaching with class teachers in her previous school and with one class teacher in her current school. This class teacher was reluctant to cooperate with her and had differing views on the ways in which certain students should be supported. Jutta saw that her special education expertise was not appreciated by some class teachers. She talked about her dual role both as a teacher and as a special education teacher who works closely with the principal and participates in decisions at school that affect all teachers. Thus, perplexities arose from these multiple roles at school:

I am a part of the same big puzzle, when I am between a rock and a hard place, in a certain way, when I must turn to the principal on many occasions, and I am there in the background influencing the things … that I have been deciding on it and I am like in between all the time, and it requires a lot of creativity from me.

According to Jutta, perplexing situations as a special education teacher and managing them have strengthened her self-confidence, which helps manage future perplexities. Jutta experienced that she has achieved her place in a working society and the trust of other teachers with a humble attitude and hard work:

I mean specifically that I do not want to put myself in any position of authority or anything like that … I have tried to show through my actions that I am on the same side with you [other teachers] and that I do not try to be anything else. So maybe that is how you got that trust and how you keep in mind that you can always learn from others.

After a struggling start, Jutta’s collaboration with her colleague improved when the teachers got to know each other’s working styles and got used to them. However, Jutta was not yet fully satisfied with this cooperation:

Maybe it is when you have gotten to know the other person and a little bit, when both of you maybe somehow learned the other’s ways of working, how to relate to them and somehow got used to them. Now when you compare it to that [what was before], our cooperation is much easier, but not exactly what I would hope.

Jutta’s extracts illustrate how she was able to manage perplexities through her self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationships skills. She managed her emotions and showed interest and understanding towards her colleague’s way of working which had improved collaboration.

Both Jutta and Päivi pondered collaboration with other stakeholders and raised concerns about how difficult it is to get support for students in situations in which students have confronted a crisis in their own lives. For instance, Päivi talked about a student whose dad had died and who had expressed suicidal thoughts. Päivi experienced that she needed to take too much responsibility for the child’s health because getting support took too much time:

I am neither a trained psychiatrist nor a social worker. In the end, I got personally in touch with the social workers through the school curator, and the social workers then got in touch with the mother [of the student], and then I thought, well, now this is in the hands of others, you can take a break. Somehow, I was terribly worried about that child because I felt that no one else is there to support him but me. Somehow it makes it easier that you can trust that now it is in someone else’s hands and their responsibility, not mine anymore.

Jutta experienced that in these frustrating situations, teachers need to be kind towards themselves and accept that teachers can do only their own share, even though they would like to do more. It is important to set boundaries for what teachers can do:

We [teachers] have our own role when it comes to promoting well-being, but we have no qualifications other than a teacher, we are not police officers, and we are not social workers or psychologists or doctors or anything else.

Jutta’s and Päivi’s experiences indicate that to manage frustrating perplexing situations, teachers need self-awareness, the ability to recognize one’s limited possibilities to contribute, and at the same time they need to preserve a sense of purpose in work.

Relational perplexities with students

The teachers’ stories indicate that collaboration with students is the best and most rewarding part of teachers’ work. At the same time, students and relationships with them are also burdening for the teachers and a source of stress. According to Essi, Asta and Päivi, most perplexing relational situations are those where teachers need to interfere with students’ disturbing behaviour, students’ fights in the classrooms or during the school days. Thus, perplexities with students mainly concerned issues with students’ social and emotional development. The teachers found that students today do not respect teachers as students did in recent decades. Essi talked about two extremes: good and bad behaving students: ‘The extremes are emphasized in everything, both in behaviour and then in school grades and similarly in self-control and in everything, beginning from the control of one’s own actions.’

Essi found particularly perplexing those situations where she needs to motivate students with learning difficulties, behavioural problems and a negative attitude towards a subject (Swedish). She worried about how disturbingly behaved students might negatively affect other students’ learning in the classroom, bringing forth a critical viewpoint on inclusive education and its functionality:

When learning difficulties, an attitude disorder and behavioural disorders are combined, it is a terrible show … there are fifty children trying to study. I would highlight when we talked about inclusion and special education classes that people with behavioural disorders can ruin a forty-five-minute lesson for other fifty students with just behavioural disorders … the student never learns anything and neither does anyone else there.

Similarly, Asta talked about a misbehaving student who had poor socioemotional skills and therefore ended up in conflicting situations with other students. Asta experienced that she did not get sufficient help from her school’s special education teachers; therefore, as a solution, she began to teach this student social and emotional skills by herself, which improved the situation in her classroom:

I have now started running my own little private teaching on social skills for this one student. It has now produced some results, but my professional skills may not be enough to completely improve the behaviour of that student. But you can make someone touch on that behaviour, which was just constant barking, joking, and bullying other students. Like nonstop.

In addition to students’ misbehaviour, Päivi talked about how students are affected by phenomena that occur outside of school. According to Päivi, it is important for teachers to be sensitive to students’ concerns. A teacher needs to be ready to address matters that happen during students’ free time and weekends if those affect students significantly. For instance, she talked about a violent attack that had happened in the schoolyard, which was then discussed during a lesson. Moreover, the Covid-19 pandemic concerned students and needed to be discussed collaboratively:

In the yard of [the school], an act of violence happened. It was in the news then and some of my students lived right next to that place … We talked for an hour with the class. So many things happen that you need to address, you cannot just skip them … the children want to talk about it, they must be taken into consideration. And of course, all these social issues, like now with this corona [Covid-19], when the children have been worried about it, we also had the student in the class who contracted corona, then those things must be discussed.

Both Asta’s and Päivi’s experiences emphasise the role of social awareness, relationships skills and responsible decision-making. The teachers showed emphatical understanding towards their students and made decisions that they thought would support the students. In Asta’s case this meant teaching social and emotional skills to a student while Päivi decided to use her teaching time to address matters that affect students’ lives outside school.

Relational perplexities with parents

Concerning collaboration with students’ parents, the teachers talked especially about communication with parents through Wilma, an electronic system for communication between schools and homes. According to the teachers, some parents send rude feedback, expressing their complaints or requesting immediate reaction. Parents’ messages can be threatening and cause fear in teachers, so teachers need to think carefully about how to respond to parents. According to the teachers, these messages might indicate that parents expect teachers to take more responsibility for the upbringing of the children or that parents do not trust the teachers’ competence, as Essi’s extract indicates:

What you have to be afraid of is if you put a note about the child that he or she behaved inappropriately … then you have to wonder if the guardians will come along the wires … it’s funny that the educational work is often left entirely to the school in these cases and then, when the school tries to do it, the guardians forbid it or they try to soften the issue or somehow, that the teacher has to be afraid, especially the younger teachers, of what the guardian will say.

Teachers searched for support from their colleagues when pondering how to respond to parents’ messages. However, as Päivi’s extract shows, this might not change the situation for the better:

We [teachers] have done a lot of collegial collaboration with this matter, we have pondered together how to respond [to parents]. Once I thought that nobody can get hurt [because of that message]. However, we got that kind of message back that I could not believe it … it bothers me that in Finland we still have the most educated teachers in the world, and still many parents have little trust in us.

The teachers used negotiation and listening skills to manage overload of some parents’ messages and requirements for an immediate reaction from a teacher, as stated by Essi: ‘He [a parent] had a positive mindset … then we talked for a long time about how we could get his [a child’s] schoolwork in a little better shape’.

Asta brought forth parents’ unrealistic expectations of their children’s development which, therefore, set unnecessary pressures on children. This also puts additional pressure on the teachers:

I sent a message home and told that this student’s behaviour had become a bit restless and that I’m worried that this student might need stronger learning support sooner or later. But the parent did not agree with me, did not see this even though they are a professional in the field of education … they promise the child rewards for feedback the teacher gives … this puts terrible pressure on the child, who may also have special needs. And then they put me between the wood and the bark, that now I need to give the child more positive feedback.

Jutta highlighted that in the above-mentioned situations, it is important for teachers to justify their decisions to parents who, after careful justification, might change their view and agree with a teacher: ‘Most parents, however, are the kind who, after justifying my own work … If you justify it well enough, then it is usually accepted [by parents].’

Jutta also talked about a phenomenon that has increased over the last few decades: parents attacking teachers or doxing situations. Jutta had experienced this and had received support from her school’s principal. According to Jutta, however, this kind of behaviour is continuing, only a target of doxing changes over time:

I have been under parents’ straight attack during my career … but it is also very important, the support of our principal, for example, in the doxing situation. So, it ended, although the target [of doxing] has changed since then. But it is true that it is still happening.

The teachers’ experiences illustrated above indicate the role of all five aspects of social and emotional competence in dealing with relational perplexities with parents. The teachers showed an ability to manage their emotions and to recognize when they needed external support to make responsible decisions and communicate effectively via Wilma or protect themselves from a parent’s attack. The teachers showed social awareness and relationships skills when trying to resolve misunderstandings constructively and maintain good relationships with parents.

Discussion

The current study explored the role of relationships in the perplexities that teachers face in their work and the strategies that teachers use to manage them. The findings indicate that the most common relationships as a source of perplexities were those with colleagues and other stakeholders. After that, the perplexing situations were related to students and, finally, to parents. In what follows, we discuss our findings and draw conclusions regarding SEC needs in teachers’ work.

The findings of this study corroborate those of previous studies by indicating the essential role of colleagues and other stakeholders, especially principals, in teacher work, shaping teachers’ job satisfaction and well-being. Sulis et al. (2022) studied UK and Austrian foreign language teachers and found that teachers’ job motivation and well-being were strongly affected by collegial support from other teachers and schools’ principals. Lack of collegiality, which was reported by the teachers in the current study, can be seen as one factor deteriorating teacher satisfaction and the possibility of addressing perplexing relational situations at work (see, e.g. Buchanan et al., 2013; Clandinin et al., 2015; Hong et al., 2018). In the current study, two beginning teachers talked about underestimation and lack of respect from other teachers during their careers. Previous studies of early-career teachers have not highlighted this aspect. A relatively new study by Räsänen et al. (2022) pointed to this factor, which plays a significant role in teacher well-being. In their study, especially early-career teachers reported having experienced appreciation, which can be explained, according to Räsänen et al. (2022), by the notion that younger teachers’ competence is highly valued nowadays. Thus, their results differ from the results of the current study, possibly indicating both temporal and contextual impacts on the way teachers’ competence is seen.

Previous studies have also found that classroom management might burden teachers and be a source of conflict between teachers and students (Buchanan et al., 2013). The teachers in the current study found students’ behaviour management burdening and time-consuming. However, at the same time, the teachers seemed to find interaction with students to be the best part of their work and the grounds for their job motivation despite its burdening effects (see also Sulis et al., 2022).

The teachers in the current study talked about feeling pressured by some parents’ demands and rude feedback. The teachers experienced that parents did not trust their expertise as teachers. Moreover, teachers and parents seemed to have conflicting views about the responsibilities of home and school in children’s upbringings. The results corroborate the literature by indicating that the parent–teacher relationship may include both conflicts and tensions, as well as successful collaboration. When studying early-career Australian teachers, Buchanan et al. (2013) found similar results regarding some parents’ hostility and aggression towards teachers. Matching results were found by Uitto et al. (2021) when studying parent–teacher relationships from Finnish primary teachers’ stories. Mistrust from parents is not rare. However, teachers can also show a lack of trust in their students’ parents (Janssen et al., 2012). It is known that parents’ presumptions, attitudes, beliefs and perceptions of schooling may vary a lot, which can cause tensions between home –school collaboration (Moore & Lasky, 2000). In an ideal situation, schools and homes share responsibility for children’s upbringing, and collaboration proceeds smoothly. However, this does not always happen in practice if, for instance, parents collaborate passively or if they are too active and continuously question a teacher’s expertise. The teachers in the current study had these kinds of experiences, corroborating the findings of Äärelä et al. (Äärelä et al., 2018) in the Finnish primary school context. In Finland, teachers have usually been highly respected and the boundaries between school and home have been clear. This study’s findings reflect the changing situation where the competence of teachers is no longer automatically trusted and valued, and where parents participate more and more in their children’s schooling which can have both negative and positive effects on teacher work.

The findings indicate that power, influences and interests of school that, sometimes referred to as micropolitics, shaped the teachers’ perceptions of their relational perplexities as well as their agency in relationships (Clandinin et al., 2015; Kelchtermans & Ballet, 2002). The teachers had internalised norms and rules concerning relationships, but in perplexing situations, they did not seem to have clear guidelines for how to act in certain perplexities, such as when receiving surprising and unwanted messages from a parent with whom collaboration had succeeded well before. The teachers’ stories revealed how different relationships interacted with each other, forming a tight, dynamic network in which teachers needed to address different parties’ interests (Janssen et al., 2012; Uitto et al., 2021). For instance, the possibility of getting support from a co-teacher influenced the total workload of teachers, the hecticness they felt during the school days and their ability to support students with diverse needs. Uitto et al. (2021) have pointed out that sometimes those multiple relationships can raise dilemmas for teachers. This was evident for Jutta, who acted between the principal and other teachers as a mediating person who needed to consider different parties’ interests simultaneously.

The teachers’ stories indicated that vulnerability was evident in their work, both among those teachers with limited and more extensive experience, and was shown especially through multiple relationships (Kelchtermans, 1996), for instance, when getting rude Wilma messages from a parent and experiencing misappreciation from parents or colleagues. The teachers reported many incidents where they felt frustrated and powerless because of being questioned by a colleague, the principal or parents or when trying to monitor students’ behaviour in and outside classroom situations. As Kelchtermans and Ballet (2002) have pointed out, the teachers searched for social recognition from others and when this was threatened, the teachers felt vulnerable.

To manage vulnerability and stabilise their working conditions, the teachers engaged in micropolitical action in which they utilised their relationships when they considered it necessary. Teachers used and developed their own SEC to cope with perplexities, for instance, by searching for support and help from others, especially a principal or other teachers (Flores & Day, 2006) or utilising some aspects of teacher SEC themselves. In some cases, the teachers seemed mainly to adapt to perplexities and maintain the current situation to avoid causing more harm. For instance, the teachers understood it was best to think carefully about the content of Wilma messages. On the other hand, teachers acted proactively, trying to change situations and indicate relational agency while solving the perplexities of daily teacher life (Clandinin et al., 2015; Edwards, 2005). For instance, the teachers could search for support from colleagues when writing messages, discuss and negotiate with parents via phone or try to justify pedagogical choices for parents. When having conflicting views with another teacher, a teacher could ask for support from a principal or develop her ability to collaborate with a different thinking colleague by getting to know this colleague better and looking at the perplexing issues more from a colleague’s perspective. Moreover, the teachers learned to set firmer boundaries for their professional roles. These results are in line with previous research (Clandinin et al., 2015; Kelchtermans & Ballet, 2002; Uitto et al., 2021), showing that, despite perplexities, the teachers showed agency trying to find solutions. However, the amount and strength of that agency seemed to change between the teachers and the perplexities they faced.

The findings especially emphasise the role of social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision-making, along with self-awareness and self-management as underlying factors. Based on the findings, we see that teachers need to be aware of their own emotions and be able to reflect on them. The ability to manage one’s emotions is essential because it makes it easier for teachers to address insecurity, manage stress and set boundaries for their work and professional roles. Moreover, teachers need an ability to take another’s position, empathy, compassion and sensitivity, which open doors for a wider understanding of other people and collaboration possibilities. These abilities set the ground for the development of positive relationships, collaborative teamwork and effective communication, which facilitate constructive problem-solving and making informative decisions. In Sulis et al.’s (Sulis et al., 2022) study, most teachers reported that their self-regulation skills developed during their careers, which helped them set clearer boundaries between their professional and personal lives. It can be assumed that similar self-regulation skills were also requirements for the teachers in the current study so that they could limit their responsibilities as teachers.

We acknowledge that interaction with an interviewer has impacted the data, and it is possible that teachers have not told everything that they could have told for many possible reasons. However, the teachers expressed that they were pleased that someone was interested in their work. Moreover, many interviewees had backgrounds as teachers, which might have increased the mutual ground for interaction in the interviews. The findings are based on four teachers’ experiences; therefore, we cannot draw generalisable conclusions. The preliminary analysis of the four interviews was conducted by the first author. However, interrater reliability was increased by discussing the final themes collaboratively between the two authors.

Conclusions and directions for further research

The results of this study indicate that the way teachers use or can use SEC in perplexing situations is shaped by their contexts. The study contributes to the existing educational field by shedding light on the multiple relational perplexities of teacher work and how teachers manage them as part of schools’ micropolitics. The results illustrate how the use or non-use of coping and managing strategies reflected the teachers’ relational agency. Further research is needed to understand teachers’ relational agency in various relational perplexities. In addition, previous research has shown that, besides contextual factors, teacher self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation and a sense of agency positively influence teachers’ resilience, well-being and perceptions of themselves as professionals (Castro et al., 2010; Kelchtermans & Ballet, 2002; Sulis et al., 2022). To understand these dynamics more deeply, future studies should look more closely at relationships between teacher managing strategies, resilience, agency and SEC. Based on the data, the teachers’ work appeared socially and emotionally demanding, and many instances, especially with students and parents, seemed to cause stress and exhaustion in the teachers. This is alarming, as we know that emotional load is a risk factor for teachers’ well-being and negatively affects their ability to carry out their work. Thus, we see it as essential for teachers to develop their own SEC during their careers to be able to teach these skills to students. Teachers would need more tools to develop their SEC, especially their ability to recognise and regulate their emotions; therefore, further research is needed on the key components of teacher SEC, how teachers utilise them and how SEC might be developed during teacher career. One way of developing teacher SEC could be applying ‘transformative SEL’ (2008a), a form of SEL intervention where the primary goal is to foster co-learning where both students and adults are actively engaged in the learning process together. Students and adults work together to identify and address challenges and inequalities, leading to more sustainable solutions and well-being at multiple levels. Finally, we strongly suggest that SEC is already assessed when selecting new teacher candidates because the development of SEC should start during pre-service education, where student teachers need both theoretical concepts and practical training of SEC.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Council of Finland [Grant number 332232] and the Eudaimonia Institute, University of Oulu. We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the members of the international advisory board to the output of this project: Asta Cekaite (Linköping University), D. Jean Clandinin (University of Alberta), Maria Flores (University of Minho) and Geert Kelchtermans (University of Leuven).