Emotional labor: Advancing our public administration classroom

ABSTRACT

Public administration courses often use the pillars of public administration (e.g., efficiency, effectiveness, equity, economy, accountability, responsiveness) as foundational concepts across our core curriculum. However, our public administration curriculum is alarmingly absent of conversations about emotional labor. Put simply, emotional labor is emotion management and life management combined, which is unpaid, invisible work we do to keep those around us happy (Rinfret et al., 2022). In this paper we detail a semester-long research project focused on emotional labor, and why it is necessary for how we work in a diverse and changing workforce. Our pilot study examines original data collected during the spring and summer 2022 to document the experiences of 36 students enrolled in a core public administration course. The findings illustrate that using the emotional labor project (ELP) provides opportunities for us to engage in conversation with our students to change the narrative in our discipline and practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Emotional labor
• public administration foundation course
• semester project

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sara Rinfret

Dr. Sara Rinfret is currently an Associate Vice Provost, Faculty Affairs and Professor of Public Administration at Northern Arizona University. She has more than a decade of higher education leadership experience serving in roles such as Acting Dean, Associate Dean, Chair, and Master of Public Administration Director. Her scholarship is globally recognized in the areas of regulatory policy, environmental policy, women and government, public administration, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Dr. Rinfret holds an MPA from the John Glenn College of Public Affairs (Ohio State), and PhD in political science from Northern Arizona University.

Eric Wise

Eric Wise is a Master of Public Administration candidate at Northern Arizona University.