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Shame and Pride: Invisible Emotions in Classroom Research

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Emotions as Bio-cultural Processes

Abstract

This chapter deals with the role of shame and pride in school learning and achievement situations. It discusses the proposition that these emotions are ubiquitous in academic learning, although they seem surprisingly “invisible”—not only for their protagonists, the students and teachers, but in the scientific literature on teaching and learning at school. On the one hand, it can be clearly shown that the institution of school generates a great variety of opportunities for students to experience shame and pride not only while performing its societal tasks of qualification, allocation, and socialization but also because it provides students with a peer group. On the other hand, what the sociologist Thomas Scheff called the “invisibility” of shame in Western cultures can also be shown: Shame in particular has not been a part of public and scientific discourses on academic learning. To fill this gap, we examine how far well established scientific concepts such as the academic self-concept, self-esteem, and achievement motivation, which are so relevant in the school context, are linked to experiences of pride and shame, and why it would be a worthwhile endeavor to analyze them from the perspective of a psychology of emotions.

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Holodynski, M., Kronast, S. (2009). Shame and Pride: Invisible Emotions in Classroom Research. In: Markowitsch, H., Röttger-Rössler, B. (eds) Emotions as Bio-cultural Processes. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09546-2_17

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