Coming to Practice ‘with Emotions’ Differently in Educational Praxis: Transforming Pedagogical Risk-Taking in Early Childhood Education

This chapter uses data from a study of pedagogical risk-taking in early childhood education and care to propose a new way to practice ‘with emotions’ in educational praxis. The study explored the emotions associated with pedagogical risk-taking for educators in three Australian early childhood education and care settings. Drawing on observations and interviews, this chapter presents a detailed account of the emotions educators experienced as they contemplated and enacted risk-taking; what provoked these emotions; and how emotions influenced and shaped educators’ risk-taking practices. Thematic analysis identified that educators’ risk-taking was characterised by negative affect and emotional labour. Negative affect stemmed from the possibility of undesirable outcomes and relational tensions associated with competing ideas of what was ‘best’. Emotional labour resulted from educators’ attempts to display certainty in their practice, despite the uncertainties inherent within risk-taking. The presence of negative affect and emotional labour, and the effect of these on pedagogical risk-taking, is discussed. In response to these findings, a model for bringing emotions and relational tensions to the fore in collective feeling-thinking praxis is presented—as a strategy for embedding empathy and humanity in educational praxis.