Interrogating political emotions in an elementary social studies methods course

Emotions are an integral part of civic identity and engagement, yet they are rarely the main focus of social studies education research. As such, this instrumental case study explores the ever-present emotions that elementary pre-service teachers experienced while completing an Election News Group project during the 2024 presidential election in their elementary social studies methods course. Pre-service teachers recognized the magnitude of their own emotions and also acknowledged that political discourse can be taught in age-appropriate ways to elementary students. However, they often equated emotion as problematic and untrustworthy and avoided addressing emotion within the instructional activities they planned for their future elementary students. We encourage teacher educators to center and interrogate emotions in the teaching of civic engagement.