| Emotions find their meanings within human relationships that permit emotions to be experienced, expressed, and explored. Social and emotional competence, marked by an understanding, expression, and control of emotion, is one of the hallmarks of emotional discourse—demonstrated in the very nature of interactive communication as individuals relate to one another. The literature pertinent to preschoolers’ emotional expression and emotion-word use in natural environments, group settings, and in the context of discourse, is limited in scope. Although research related to teacher-child relationships is prolific, specific research examining the nature of their interactions, most particularly related to emotion during discourse, is scarce. The current study was designed to address these gaps through an investigation of the following research questions: (a) How do preschool children express their emotions during interactions with their teacher?; (b) What are the communication patterns within teacher-child interactions in Head Start classrooms during emotion discourse?; and (c) What are the Head Start staff’s (teachers and administrators) perspectives of the role emotion discourse plays in the classroom? The study demonstrated that bookreading elicited more emotion words than did breakfast. The emotion words used most frequently included happy, mad, sad, angry, and grumpy. Findings also included a description of strategies teachers used to extend conversations with children about emotions. |
