Madrid, SamaraDunn-Kenney, Maylan2024-02-072024-02-072010-11-01https://wyoscholar.uwyo.edu/handle/internal/1330https://doi.org/10.15786/wyoscholar/9802This research examines the emotional themes and discourse of emotion of early childhood educators using a post-structuralist theoretical framework of emotion. The data selected and analyzed is taken from 4 two-hour discussion groups that were conducted over an eight-week period with four female early childhood educators. The emotional themes and patterns that emerged from the discussion groups and artifacts, teacher journals, and follow-up interviews were analyzed and then followed with a micro-level analysis. The findings revealed that the three most common emotion words discussed were 'stress', 'worry', and 'frustration', which were linked to surveillance and a discourse around persecutory guilt through institutional and relational systems, fostering implicit resistance among participants.enghttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Educationjournal contribution10.1080/15210960.2011.548173