An investigation into the emotional environment: introducing the emotional ecology of early childhood education and care settings

This paper is focused on investigating the emotional environment of Early Childhood Education and Care settings within three settings in the Southwest of the UK as part of a doctoral thesis. Literature is drawn from research such as Professional Love (Page Citation2018), Emotional Labour (Elfer Citation2015) and Ethics of Care (Noddings Citation1984). The methodology was positioned from a phenomenological (Sokolowski Citation2000) and praxeological (Pascal and Bertram Citation2012) methodological approach. As the primary research was completed within settings and involving children, ethical implications were carefully considered. The study sought to give an interpretation of the emotional environment within Early Childhood Education and Care settings by deploying observations, document analysis and manager interviews to give an interpretation of the emotional environment. The main findings suggest that emotional environments are complex. This means there is much ambiguity within emotion, particularly the framing of love and affection. It offers original contributions, such as the design of a new combination of concepts about emotional environments within a theoretical framework. The Emotional Ecology of Early Childhood Education and Care settings is a way of viewing some of these complexities and understanding the context in which they occur. This approach to dissemination fits with the Praxeological methodological positioning which seeks to transform practice by researching praxis (Coughlan and Coughlan Citation2010).