A study of emotional energy in the context of a Chinese primary STEM classroom

Through this project we seek to make a valuable contribution to what we know about student social emotions (emotional energy) in STEM classrooms, with a focus on the cultural context of a Shanghai (Chinese) primary class. Emotional energy is an individual and collective experience of togetherness or solidarity as an outcome of successful social interaction. It is evident through mutual entrainment of bodily gestures, facial actions and conversation. As a feature of everyday, situated social practices emotional energy is recognized as a form of student engagement and is associated with changes in conceptual understanding in science classrooms. Previous research draws mostly from Australian and North American science classroom contexts. The present study seeks to explore emotional energy as a social phenomenon in a primary STEM classroom located in Shanghai, China, with the aim of understanding intercultural dimensions of student learning experiences and researcher inter-subjectivity when investigating emotion.

This project is a collaboration with Shanghai Normal University.