Manifestations of emotional agency in teacher education: a cross-national comparison of service-learning experiences in Germany, Austria, and Greece

Background Emotions play a central role in teacher education, yet research has primarily focused on emotional competence and less on how emotional experiences manifest in professional action. The concept of emotional agency offers a process-oriented perspective for understanding how preservice teachers mobilize emotions in authentic and socially embedded learning environments. Purpose This study investigates the manifestations of emotional agency in preservice teachers’ service-learning (SL) experiences and examines how these manifestations vary across teacher education contexts in Germany, Austria, and Greece. Emotional agency is conceptualized as the enactment of emotional competence through professional action and operationalized through the dimensions of Action Regulation, Reflective Processing, and Social Embeddedness. Methods The study draws on 209 reflective diaries collected from preservice teachers participating in SL courses in Germany ( n = 94), Austria ( n = 60), and Greece ( n = 55). Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis following Mayring's structuring approach and combining deductive and inductive coding procedures. Findings The findings show that emotional agency becomes visible when emotional experiences inform behavioral adaptation, professional reflection, and collaborative engagement. Across all three countries, social embeddedness emerged as the dominant manifestation of emotional agency, highlighting the central role of collaboration and interaction in professional learning. At the same time, distinct national profiles were identified. In Germany, manifestations of emotional agency were particularly associated with motivational engagement and collaborative participation. In Austria, emotional agency was more strongly characterized by reflective processing and engagement with emotional complexity. In Greece, manifestations of emotional agency were most evident in collaboration and adaptive responses to professional challenges. Conclusion The study provides a theoretically grounded and empirically applicable operationalization of emotional agency through Action Regulation, Reflective Processing, and Social Embeddedness. By making emotional agency observable and analyzable, the proposed framework offers a foundation for future research on emotions, professional learning, and teacher development across educational contexts.