S2 Episode Five: Learning as an emotional practice: emotion in the sociology of education

My guest in this episode is Dr. Roland Tormey. Roland is a sociologist and learning scientist, researching and teaching on engineering education in EPFL, Switzerland. Prior to 2011, he worked in teacher education and in curriculum development in Ireland. His recent research focuses on diversity and equality issues in learning, on the role of emotion in science and engineering learning, and on engineering ethics education. His recent publications include co-authoring Facilitating Experiential Learning in Higher Education: Teaching and Supervising in Labs, Fieldwork, Studios, and Projects (2021), and co-editing The Routledge International Handbook of Engineering Ethics Education (2025). He also leads the Teaching Support Centre at EPFL, Switzerland. In this episode Roland highlights his work on intercultural education guidelines and the emotional aspects of teaching, including frustration and anxiety. Roland emphasises the need to take emotions seriously in both teaching practice and educational research. We discuss his early work on Irish identity and how it was represented in the curriculum, particularly in history. Roland’s interest in emotion in education was sparked by the cognitive focus of intercultural education literature and the emotional aspects of community changes. We discuss the following in more detail; emotion in education and teacher competencies, challenges and emotional dynamics in teaching, emotion and reason in moral judgment, emotional labor in engineering and education, emotion and community in education and artificial intelligence and emotion in education. Roland describes how he and his colleague Róisín Corcoran explored how teachers develop emotional competencies, including recognizing and regulating emotions.They found that teachers have multiple roles, experiencing various emotions such as pride, anxiety, frustration, guilt, and shame. We discuss the emotional aspects of being a student teacher, including the high stakes and the emotional space of the teaching profession. Roland emphasises the importance of recognizing and managing emotions in teaching, as it is a crucial part of the learning process. Roland explores the relationship between emotion and reason in moral judgment, noting that emotions facilitate different types of reasoning. He explains that emotions like happiness and anxiety can impact different cognitive processes, such as brainstorming and error detection. The traditional view of emotion as a threat to reason is challenged by studies showing that emotions can enhance certain types of thinking. We discuss the concept of emotional labor, particularly in engineering teams, where women often take on more emotional work. He gives examples of how women in engineering teams feel the need to suppress their emotions to overcome implicit biases. We discuss masculinity and subject disciplines in education and he references Máirtín Mac an Ghaill’s work on masculinities in schools, showing how subject disciplines can shape ideas of masculinity. He explains how different groups within schools construct masculinity through various disciplines, such as sports, business, and science. Roland emphasizes the importance of building a sense of community in education, which involves recognizing and managing emotions.He discusses the emotional components of habitus, the social and psychological structures that shape individual behavior. He shares a study on deep fakes and their effect on parasocial emotions, showing how emotions mediate power in social interactions. The use of deep fakes as a tool of power, particularly targeting women, is discussed in our conversation, highlighting the emotional dimensions of AI in education.