In recent years, it seems that teachers in Hong Kong feel negatively about their work. To some extent, the negative emotional experiences may not only affect teachers’ well-being, but also the quality of schooling. Thus, it is necessary for us to pay attention to the phenomenon of teachers’ emotional experiences, especially the negative ones. In the literature, researchers have investigated teachers’ emotional experiences from the psychological perspective. Nevertheless, the psychological perspective may neglect the social impacts on teaches’ emotional experiences. The limitation may create an incomplete or inaccurate understanding about the phenomenon. In order to overcome the limitation, this article proposes a sociological research agenda for further investigation on the basis of symbolical interactionism. Copyright © 2014 Sjournals. All rights reserved.

The study explores the social psychological process of teachers’ emotional experiences. Twenty-one secondary schoolteachers in Hong Kong were interviewed. The findings show that the teachers generally felt caam² (a Cantonese adjective that covers a range of meanings like gloomy, dreadful, tragic, pitiful, pathetic, and miserable) in teaching. The social psychological process of the emotional experience of caam² involves how teachers interpret the significance of their actual work in attaining the teaching goal of making a difference. If they interpret their work as incapable of fulfilling the goal, they will experience negative emotions in teaching. The findings also suggest that the interpretation is affected by teachers’ power which is unequally distributed according to teachers’ teaching experience and managerial roles. Copyright © 2016 Tsang and Kwong.