Managing emotions in the daycare context: Communication, structure, and agency

Numerous studies have resulted from Hochschild's (1983) theorizing about emotional labor. Much of this research is problematic though because it has tended to privilege the structural forces influencing emotional labor with minimal attention to agency, and the contexts examined have been primarily short term in nature. This research addresses the gap created by these oversights by examining the emotional display expectations communicated by parents to in-home daycare providers and the providers' attempts to communicatively manage those expectations. Twenty-four interviews were conducted with in-home daycare providers in an attempt to answer six research questions. Grounded practical theory was used in the analysis of the interview data. Data point to ideological differences as one of the main sources of emotional labor for daycare providers as they interacted with parents. These ideological differences are often the result of the structures that are produced and reproduced as parents and providers interact. As providers attempt to communicatively manage the emotional display expectations of parents they rely on handbooks and policies as a way of avoiding confrontation, but also find it possible at times to use direct communication strategies. Finally, production and reproduction of structure leads to unintended consequences for the providers, which are manifested in dialectical tensions such as public/private, independence/dependence and personal/professional.