Feeling Their Way through It: Educators' Emotions and Ethical Sensemaking of Tennessee's Age-Appropriate Materials Act
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| Title: | Feeling Their Way through It: Educators' Emotions and Ethical Sensemaking of Tennessee's Age-Appropriate Materials Act |
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| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Renee Moran (ORCID |
| Source: | Teachers College Record. 2026 128(2):3-27. |
| Availability: | SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: https://sagepub.com |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 25 |
| Publication Date: | 2026 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Research |
| Education Level: | Elementary Education Junior High Schools Middle Schools Secondary Education High Schools |
| Descriptors: | Developmentally Appropriate Practices, Ethics, Teacher Attitudes, Psychological Patterns, Educational Legislation, State Legislation, Instructional Materials, Instructional Material Evaluation, Elementary School Teachers, Middle School Teachers, High School Teachers, Educational Policy |
| Geographic Terms: | Tennessee |
| DOI: | 10.1177/01614681261427089 |
| ISSN: | 0161-4681 1467-9620 |
| Abstract: | Context: The study is situated in Tennessee, following the 2022 passage of the Age-Appropriate Materials Act (AAMA). This legislation required schools to maintain and publicly disclose a complete list of educational materials while implementing review processes to ensure content appropriateness relative to student age and maturity levels. The AAMA's scope extended beyond school library collections to encompass all materials accessible to students, including those in teachers' classrooms. Purpose: This study investigates how educators make sense of ethical tensions created by Tennessee's Age-Appropriate Materials Act of 2022, with attention to how emotions shape their reasoning, decisions, and actions. By centering educators' lived experiences, the study contributes to understandings of ethics, affect, and professional agency in policy-constrained contexts. Research Design: The data set for this study comprises 30 semi-structured interviews conducted in summer 2023 with educators across Tennessee. Guided by the theoretical frame of ethical sensemaking and using reflexive thematic analysis, the study examines how participants interpret, negotiate, and respond to ethical tensions between professional values and policy mandates. Conclusions: Educators' engagement with education policy is shaped through emotionally laden processes of ethical sensemaking, in which teachers actively negotiate tensions between professional values, institutional constraint, and care for students. These negotiations often take the form of "ethical truces" that sustain moral agency, enabling educators to enact ethical responsibility through subtle, relational, and often invisible forms of advocacy. Supporting educators in these contexts requires greater attention to the emotional labor of ethical decision-making and to how professional agency is cultivated in contemporary policy environments. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2026 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1502765 |
| Database: | ERIC |
| Abstract: | Context: The study is situated in Tennessee, following the 2022 passage of the Age-Appropriate Materials Act (AAMA). This legislation required schools to maintain and publicly disclose a complete list of educational materials while implementing review processes to ensure content appropriateness relative to student age and maturity levels. The AAMA's scope extended beyond school library collections to encompass all materials accessible to students, including those in teachers' classrooms. Purpose: This study investigates how educators make sense of ethical tensions created by Tennessee's Age-Appropriate Materials Act of 2022, with attention to how emotions shape their reasoning, decisions, and actions. By centering educators' lived experiences, the study contributes to understandings of ethics, affect, and professional agency in policy-constrained contexts. Research Design: The data set for this study comprises 30 semi-structured interviews conducted in summer 2023 with educators across Tennessee. Guided by the theoretical frame of ethical sensemaking and using reflexive thematic analysis, the study examines how participants interpret, negotiate, and respond to ethical tensions between professional values and policy mandates. Conclusions: Educators' engagement with education policy is shaped through emotionally laden processes of ethical sensemaking, in which teachers actively negotiate tensions between professional values, institutional constraint, and care for students. These negotiations often take the form of "ethical truces" that sustain moral agency, enabling educators to enact ethical responsibility through subtle, relational, and often invisible forms of advocacy. Supporting educators in these contexts requires greater attention to the emotional labor of ethical decision-making and to how professional agency is cultivated in contemporary policy environments. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 0161-4681 1467-9620 |
| DOI: | 10.1177/01614681261427089 |
