Understanding English language teacher-tutors’ motivations, emotional labour and coping strategies in Kyrgyzstan’s shadow education sector: a qualitative inquiry

This qualitative study investigates how English language teacher-tutors in Kyrgyzstan experience and manage emotion labour while balancing dual roles in formal schooling and private tutoring. Integrating a critical conceptualisation of emotion labour with an ecological systems perspective, the study examines how feeling rules, power relations, and teacher agency interact with individual, interpersonal, institutional, and sociocultural conditions. Data were collected through two rounds of semi-structured interviews with ten ethnic Kyrgyz English language teacher-tutors. Thematic analysis showed that financial necessity was a major motivation for private tutoring, while professional development, pedagogical autonomy, and flexibility provided opportunities for agency. These benefits coexisted with emotional strain arising from parental expectations, heavy workloads, competing professional roles, and market pressures. Participants responded agentively by regulating emotions, reducing workloads, setting boundaries, and drawing on family and psychological support. The findings highlight how emotion labour is shaped across interconnected ecological levels within a marketised educational environment.