Teacher emotion research is of great significance to teachers’ teaching effectiveness, professional development, and physical and mental health. Taken from an ecological perspective, this narrative case study used purposeful sampling to select two Chinese senior high school English teachers as research participants. Various data collection methods were used, including narrative framework, teacher interview and teacher reflection log, to describe the emotional episodes of Chinese senior high school English teachers before and after collective lesson presentation, trial teaching, and formal teaching in a teaching improvement project. The purpose of this collection of data was to explore the dynamic emotional development process and characteristics of Chinese senior high school English teachers in the interaction with ecological systems and those ecological factors that may influence their emotional development. Results indicated that the two participants developed 68 emotions: 39 positive and 29 negative emotions. At exosystem, they developed the most emotions (28 emotions). Teacher emotion changed with time quite obviously. They evolved from positive to negative and, finally, predominantly positive. Personal antecedents, contextual antecedents, and teachers’ emotional capacity are the main ecological factors that may influence the development of teacher emotion. Based on the research findings, implications for teachers’ professional development and teacher education were also provided. Emotions are one of the core parts of human life and “are an integral part of education and of organizations more generally” , p. 812.Therefore, based on above research gaps, this study primarily aims at investigating secondary school foreign language teacher emotion both internally and externally by means of using multiple data collection methods. To be more concrete, we hope to gain insight into how the internal personal characteristics and external environments interact to constitute their emotions. A second aim is to probe into the possible ecological factors that influence the development of teacher emotion in different ecological systems. In accordance with the two aims, two research questions are addressed: (1) How did Chinese senior high school English teachers develop their emotions in the interactions with different ecological systems during their participation in a teaching improvement project? (2) What are the ecological factors that may influence Chinese senior high school English teachers’ emotional development? To better answer the two questions, this study focuses on two senior high school English teachers in Beijing, China, who are participating in a teaching improvement project. Throughout this project, teachers interacted with experts who provided suggestions about improvement and also cooperated with their colleagues for help. In their interactions with different people and experiences of different matters from various systems, their emotions showed great changes. By conducting this narrative case study on two teachers during their teaching improvement project, the study offers potential contributions to the literature by innovating research methods that adopt multiple data collection methods to gain rich data of teacher emotion. Especially through the participants’ self-reported narration of their emotion development, the authenticity and richness of the data are guaranteed, based on which deep qualitative analysis of teacher emotion can be conducted. The study will also contribute to expand research content of studies on teacher emotion by not only examining the development of teacher emotion but also probing into the reasons for specific emotions. As for practice of teacher emotion, this study provides implications for teachers’ professional development and teacher education.Emotions have been classified into several categories, including dichotomous, multiple, and dimensional. The dichotomous classification categorizes teacher emotion into positive and negative. Positive emotions include joy, satisfaction, pride, and excitement; negative emotions include anger, frustration, anxiety, and sadness . This clTeacher emotion as the sub-theme of psychology of teachers is one of the three major themes for studying foreign language teachers’ development from ecological perspective . In ordeMost of the studies on the development of teacher emotion according to the ecological framework used qualitative research design such as case study and narrative inquiry. As for the studies on ecological factors leading to the development of teacher emotion, the researchers tried to investigate and summarize the factors from different perspectives, focusing on teachers’ interaction with different systems. Based on the above literature, it is clear that, recently, an increasing amount of researchers has focused on teacher emotion from an ecological perspective. However, the research object is relatively too focused: most of the researchers took primary and university teachers as participants, while few researchers investigate secondary school English teacher emotion within an ecological system. Considering the complexity of the impacts of social-cultural and environmental factors on the individual emotions, The concrete interplay between teacher emotion and each system is as follows:(1)The microsystem, “which involves the structures and processes taking place in an immediate setting, containing the developing person ” , p. 80. (2)The mesosystem “comprises the linkages and processes taking place between two or more settings containing the developing person” , p. 80. (3)The exosystem, “encompasses the linkages and processes taking place between two or more settings, at least one of which does not ordinarily contain the developing person, but in which events occur that influence processes within the immediate setting that does contain that person” , p. 80. (4)The macrosystem “is defined as an overarching pattern of ideology and organization of the social institutions common to a particular culture or subculture” , p. 81. (5)The chronosystem “permits one to identify the impact of prior life events and experiences, singly or sequentially, on subsequent development” , p. 83. The reason why the current study chooses the ecological systems framework as analytical framework is that this framework situates a developing person in nested ecological systems and reflects the complex sociocultural world of a teacher and the influences that impact on his or her development . Just asThe research questions to be addressed in the study are:(1)How did Chinese senior high school English teachers develop their emotions in the interactions with different ecological systems during their participation in a teaching improvement project?(2)What are the ecological factors that may influence Chinese senior high school English teachers’ emotional development?In accordance with research content, this study used purposeful sampling, that is “selecting information-rich cases to study, cases that, by their nature and substance, will illuminate the inquiry question being investigated” , p. 277.To have a comprehensive exploration of the research questions, this study employed the method of narrative case study. Cases studies are frequently qualitative and interpretative, “generally involve rich contextualization and a deep, inductive analysis of data from a set of participants, sites, or events” , p. 1. TA narrative framework, interviews, and teachers’ reflective logs were used to collect data in this study.Based on Regarding the interview, we conducted two individual structured interviews with each participant. Open-ended interview questions were prepared for each interview to serve as a reference guide for the interviewer. Each interview lasts between 20 and 30 min. The first interview was conducted after the trial teaching, aiming to explore the development of teacher emotion in the period of collective lesson presentation and trial teaching. The second interview was conducted after the formal teaching in order to examine teacher emotion after the whole improvement progress. In order to make sure that the participants have clearer descriptions of their emotions, we provided a list of emotional vocabularies adopted from Additionally, after each period during the teaching improvement project, the teachers were asked to write reflective logs. Totally, the two participants wrote six reflective logs, 6,821 words. Thus, we employed data source triangulation techniques by analyzing these logs to enrich the research findings.All the data were analyzed based on the procedures of content analysis  and threIn order to guarantee the reliability of this study, the following strategies were adopted:Firstly, a variety of data collection methods were used in this study to ensure the richness of data to form data triangulation validation. To be more specific, as mentioned above, this study employed data source triangulation by adopting a narrative framework, interviews, and teachers’ reflective logs as data collection methods, which ensure the richness, reliability, and inherent consistency of the data being collected. Secondly, to reduce the influence of cultural politeness on teachers’ expression of their true emotions, all the data were collected by the other researcher, avoiding involving the teacher trainer in the data collection process. And the whole interview process was videotaped. After transcribing the video, the researchers invited the participants to check whether the transcripts were congruent with the emotions they wanted to express as Through analysis of the data, the researchers found that the two participants developed 68 emotions, 39 positive and 29 negative emotions. Both two teachers presented their inner emotional change over the time. Mrs. B developed her emotions in twists and turns, from positive to negative and, finally, positive predominantly. While Mrs. A concluded her emotions have evolved from “worry (negative) to confidence (positive).” Below we provide descriptions of teacher emotion generated within different ecological systems, respectively.The participants reported 20 emotions, consisting of 13 positive  and 7 negative emotions  at the microsystem.The very first emotion both the two teachers expressed was love. Mrs. B explicitly said, “I love teaching and research.” Mrs. A focused on herself more and said, “I like to see my improvement.” This kind of love is one of the reasons why they participated in this project.The most frequently reported positive emotions are love, expectation, and interest. Among them, the highest frequently reported positive emotion is expectation within this system, especially Mrs. A expressed her expectation to varying degrees; one example is as follows:I am very eager to apply the knowledge I have learned, the skills I have learned, and the ideas I have learned to my own teaching. I also hope that I can improve higher, improve faster. If my teaching level improved, then students will certainly follow the tide… .From the above transcript, Mrs. A mainly developed her expectation for her teaching directly as well as for students indirectly. And the expression “I am very eager to apply…to my own teaching” also reflects her strong desire for improvement.The most frequently described negative emotions are pity and worry. And Mrs. B was extremely reflective on her teaching performances. She reported more unpleasant emotions on herself, as can be seen from the following examples,…teaching is an art full of pity. I also felt pity for my formal teaching for not performing better…when giving the lesson, I was not only worried that students would not understand well if I do not give enough explanations, but also worried that I gave too detailed and complicated explanations (Mrs. B’s 2nd interview).I felt pity for delaying the first class after the vacations (Mrs. B’s narrative framework).The development of teacher emotion (both positive and negative) at the microsystem level is closely related to their personal experience and the persons directly related to themselves and their teaching, such as Mrs. A’s father as she mentioned:One of the things that influenced my emotion most of the whole process was that my father was ill, and I was worried about not being able to give lessons on time (Mrs. A.’ narrative framework).Besides, teachers’ positive emotions are mainly derived from their own teaching goals and practice, that is teachers’ professional beliefs of teachers’ personal factors. For example:I feel satisfied with the progress I’ve made. I hope to apply what I have learned today to my own classroom and constantly improve my teaching (Mrs. A.’ 2nd interview).However, teachers’ negative emotions are mainly related to their unexpected bad teaching performances in the project and their students’ passive and effectiveless learning in class, as is shown in the following example:…The student did not read or listen to English at home for a long time during the holiday, so I felt that I had some difficulties in input. Then, I was anxious, because I felt that the student could not understand something in the process of input…I am still a little pity, because I don’t think I was at my best… (Mrs. B.’ 2nd interview).When their own teaching performances were not that good or students’ unacceptable behaviors or struggles with understanding learning contents came out, their negative emotions were elicited.The participants developed 12 emotions within this system. Among them, two (gratefulness and powerfulness) are positive and 10  are negative. Gratefulness is the common positive emotion developed by the two participants. Mrs. B developed her gratefulness toward Mrs. A for explaining for her to the school administrators; and Mrs. A not only showed her thankfulness to school leaders, but also, she saw the effect and powerfulness of teachers’ cooperation:Mrs. A explained to the school (administrators) that I didn’t adjust class schedule privately. I was grateful that she understood my original intention and explained for me… (Mrs. B.’ 2nd interview).Anyway, I want to give many thanks to our school’s leaders, who supported our work in the teaching improvement project and, finally, adjusted class schedule for us… Besides, in the whole process, we, two teachers, cooperated a lot; the effect of cooperation is good and powerful… (Mrs. A’ 1st interview).However, more negative emotions were developed than positive emotions in this system. The most frequently mentioned negative emotions are disappointment and anxiety. Relationships and cooperation between the two participants were difficult. Mrs. B expressed her anxiety about the cooperation in her first interview by saying “I felt extremely anxious about cooperation with other teachers because I am not able to do what I really want to do sometimes and I have to make all kinds of adjustments and changes.” When coming to their own individual part of teaching design or giving lessons, they were too self-centered. They seldom gave and took each other’s advice, as Mrs. B complained in her second interview that “though we cooperated to design a class, we still only did our own parts. Even when she (Mrs. A) changed some activities or some designs, she did not tell me or asked for my advice. So, I felt I was in a passive situation and a little disappointed.” Mrs. A also thought that “it was disappointing when there is poor or difficult communication in the cooperation.” So, eventually, they developed more negative emotions than positive emotions in their relationships.School climate of organizational factors is the main reason for teacher emotion change in mesosystem. For positive emotions, gratefulness was generated in situations where both Mrs. A and Mrs. B were facing common difficulties and incidents related to their teaching in school, where they got supports from each other or school leaders. They both described an emotional episode where gratefulness was generated. As has been mentioned above, Mrs. A and Mrs. B cooperated to teach this reading and writing lesson in one class. So, they needed to adjust Mrs. B’s class schedule to guarantee that they can have shared free time for the formal teaching. However, teachers are not allowed to adjust class schedule privately in this school. Under the joint efforts of the two teachers and school administrators and related school leaders, they finally adjusted the schedule. According to this episode, it can be seen that the school climate is supportive. And the democratic leadership style of school leaders brings positive effects on teacher emotion. Besides, Mrs. A said, “I felt the power of cooperation” in the narrative framework. This has a high degree of alignment with the outcomes in However, collegial relations could bring mixed emotions for teachers. And when there were differences of opinion or poor communication, more negative emotions emerged, and even occupied a dominant position. Despondently, Mrs. B described how her attempts were denied by Mrs. A in front of her own students.I really wanted to do a good job that day  to give students enough input to prepare for the later writing. So I procrastinated a little bit. This is my fault. But before Mrs. A’s lesson, she kept saying with my students that, although last class was extended…That’s it…it just made me feel like…I felt very sad, also a bit aggrieved (Mrs. B.’ 2nd interview).In addition, they had different teaching philosophies and styles, also different attitudes toward students. Mrs. B held the opinion of giving students enough language input before output, just as she said above “to give students enough input” and “to prepare for the later writing.” So she thought she had to activate students enough even though procrastinated in a public lesson. However, Mrs. A thought they should present a perfect public lesson, and they could tutor students after class. As she had said in the 2nd interview, “The formal teaching is the display of our progress in the project. Teachers can answer more difficult questions of students after class… Though the reading part was procrastinated, I wanted to ensure my part to continue smoothly and as perfectly as possible.” This kind of comparable degree of investment in the students and in lessons caused the main strained collegial interaction and negative emotions. That is to say, teachers’ professional beliefs of teachers’ personal antecedents have impacts on their collegial relationship as an organizational factor, to some extent, eliciting some negative emotions.The participants developed the most emotions (28 kinds) in the interaction within this system. Nineteen are positive  and nine  are negative emotions. The most frequently mentioned positive emotions are gratefulness, hopefulness, and confidence. These positive emotions are shown in two aspects. On the one hand, they showed extremely positive attitudes toward this teaching improvement project. For example, they both applied actively for this project. They were full of hope and expectation for the promotion this project would bring to them. Mrs. A expressed her gratefulness to this project and the confidence coming along as follows:Thanks the collective lesson presentation activity of the teaching improvement project, which changed our understanding of textbooks and teaching methods in group discussions. I felt more confident in my later teaching design of this lesson (Mrs. A.’s 1st reflective log).On the other hand, more positive emotions were developed from the interaction between them and the experts. Mrs. A and Mrs. B totally expressed their gratefulness to the experts nine times in different forms, for example:I am lucky and grateful to have the chance to communicate with the experts. In the process of discussing with them, I had a better understanding of teaching. I am more confident to implement the core competence to teaching activities (Mrs. A.’s 2nd interview).After the collective lesson presentation, the trial teaching, and formal teaching, my teaching improved a lot. This progress is inseparable from the guidance and help of experts. The guidance and affirmation of the experts make me confident and hopeful about the future design of reading and writing courses. Thanks all the experts (Mrs. B.’s 3rd reflective log).The most frequently described negative emotions are tension, anxiety, and depression. They are “nervous” when the experts are listening to their classes. They “felt anxious” that they “may not be able to complete the lesson better in front of the experts.” And Mrs. B even had “a sense of depression when experts didn’t give praise after the trial teaching.”The development of the participants’ emotions within this system was mainly due to their interaction with experts and the difference of their emotional capacity. Social supports and positive feedback coming from the experts contribute to their positive emotions. Although they inevitably developed negative emotions like tension and anxiety when they were giving lessons in front of the experts, they still described more pleasant feelings after each stage, especially after receiving praise and constructive advice from the experts. Just as Mrs. A said in the interview and the narrative framework:The most positive thing about the improvement process was that the professors gave some encouragement. And then I felt more hopeful and more energetic. I have more confidence in myself and my teaching. I think that’s an important aspect of participating in the improvement program… (Mrs. A.’s 2nd interview).After the trial teaching, I felt like I’ve gained a lot. Because the professors gave me detailed comments and suggestions about my classes…This feeling is like the puzzle was solved (Mrs. A.’s narrative framework).The interaction between teachers and experts constitutes the core interaction of the project. The improvement of teachers’ teaching is the core goal of the project. Although they may feel ashamed and pity for not performing better, the above data revealed that the teachers were happy when their efforts had been recognized by the experts. The experts’ advice on their teaching not only brought immediate effects on their feelings but also had a long-term impact on their teaching. Based on what experts had commented on the lessons they gave in the teaching improvement project; the teachers would reflect how to improve their later lessons in future teaching.However, when they received some negative feedback or they had not fully implemented the experts’ guidance, their emotional capacity would play an important role. Mrs. A’s capacity of emotion regulation is stronger than Mrs. B’s. Although Mrs. A felt a little ashamed that she had not fully implemented the experts’ guidance, she still regulated her emotions immediately and tried to eliminate emotional contradictions and turned the shame into expectation for the next promotion. However, Mrs. B developed more negative emotions like depression, puzzlement, and anxiety. For not fully implementing the experts’ guidance, she also showed unpleasant feelings. But she focused too much on the experience and did not regulate the negative emotion properly.The data showed that, at this level, the teachers developed the least emotions, totally five  positive emotions and three  negative emotions. The teachers developed relatively average positive and negative emotions in this system. They showed positive feelings toward the benefits of using new textbooks, while they felt unpleasant for delaying their teaching planning by some force majors. For example, Mrs. B described an emotional episode where her teaching plans and even teaching performances were influenced by holidays:…because of all kinds of reasons that beyond my control, my plans in this project were disrupted. After the Dragon Boat Festival, students had a three-day Gaokao holiday again. Students’ performances were not that ideal. All of these things also made me helpless… (Mrs. A.’s 2nd interview).Gaokao and Dragon Boat Festival holiday, both delaying the teachers’ overall planning in the project. What is more, one thing both Mrs. A and Mrs. B showed mixed emotions is the Teaching Material Reform, which is currently one of the important educational reforms. For one thing, they thought that the use of new textbooks would bring some challenges. For another, they love the innovative activity design in new textbooks, which enhances their innovation ability in the process of teaching practice. Mrs. A described her mixed emotional experience at this level:In the macrosystem, policy factors are the main factors that influence teachers’ development of emotions. As has been mentioned above, the teachers’ negative feelings were mainly related to the restrictions of social policy, like …I want to say that the love is to XXX edition new textbook…Now I feel like it’s part of my teaching, even part of my body…This textbook is really, really good. There is a lot of content to dig…But it is very difficult for teachers who use the new edition textbook for the first time. Because using a new teaching material, every day, we need to prepare for lessons seriously. And a lot of relevant information should be sought by ourselves, unlike using old textbooks. So we are pioneers in using this textbook (Mrs. A.’s 2nd interview).These findings showed that, even though sometimes, educational reform brings challenges to frontline teachers, they still have shown strong willingness to regulate their emotions to adapt to innovation and regarded this change as an opportunity to improve their teaching.Before the collective lesson presentation, both Mrs. A and Mrs. B were very wishful and really looking forward to this project. But they also felt nervous and puzzled when preparing for the presentation of their teaching plans. This experience was compared as “wade across the stream by feeling the way” (Mrs. B.’s narrative framework). After the presentation, they felt suddenly enlightened and joyful because their “confusion about instructional design was solved” (Mrs. A.’s narrative framework). Meanwhile, Mrs. B also developed negative emotions like chagrin and anxiety for “failing to let the experts better understand the teaching design.”Before the trial teaching, they still had felt both expectant and nervous. Mrs. B compared this experience as “a novice teacher’s first public lesson.” After the trial teaching, their emotions were not so consistent as they were after the collective lesson presentation. Mrs. A developed more positive emotions than negative emotions at this stage. And most of her positive emotions are related to her interaction with the experts.Just because of their different emotions developed after the trial teaching, they also had diverse feelings when preparing for the formal teaching. Despite Mrs. A was stressful, she had more confidence than before, while Mrs. B was in a dilemma of adjusting class schedule and revising her teaching design.After the formal teaching, the two teachers both developed more kinds of positive emotions than at any previous stage. Concretely, they are “much open-minded and hopeful to future teaching,” “happiness, satisfaction, determination, and confidence,” (Mrs. A) “optimism,” and “full of confidence and hope for reading and writing class” (Mrs. B).Based on the data above, Mrs. A and Mrs. B’s holistic developments of emotions within different systems at different stages are shown below , 3.1 represents totally positive emotion, and−1 represents totally negative emotion. The numbers between−1 and 1 represent different degrees of positive and negative emotions. Stage 1 = before the collective lesson presentation; Stage 2 = after the collective lesson presentation; Stage 3 = before the trial teaching; Stage 4 = after the trial teaching; Stage 5 = before the formal teaching; Stage 6 = after the formal teaching.As is shown, in the whole process, most of Mrs. A’s emotions are positive predominantly. At Stage 4  and Stage 5 , her negative emotions developed, stemming from different factors, especially in the interaction with mesosystem and macrosystem. But she regulated her emotions well and quickly. And after the formal teaching, her emotions obviously turned to positive ones.1 represents totally positive emotion, and−1 represents totally negative emotion. The numbers between−1 and 1 represent different degrees of positive and negative emotions. Stage 1 = before the collective lesson presentation; Stage 2 = after the collective lesson presentation; Stage 3 = before the trial teaching; Stage 4 = after the trial teaching; Stage 5 = before the formal teaching; Stage 6 = after the formal teaching.Mrs. B’s emotions fluctuated widely. Her positive and negative emotions show symmetrical distribution. And her emotions within different systems also fluctuated to different degrees. Moreover, the final emotions developed in the last stage vary shockingly. Within microsystem and exosystem, she developed extremely positive emotions, while, within mesosystem, extremely negative emotions emerged.In the whole process of teaching improvement, different factors influence the participants’ fluctuation of emotions at each stage. Before the collective lesson presentation and the trial teaching, the teachers’ knowledge, values, and skills in these personal factors dominated their emotions and mainly elicited positive emotions like “hope” and “expectation.” During the process of improvement, like after the trial teaching, Mrs. A and Mrs. B’s emotions fluctuated quite differently because of all of the three aspects—personal factors, contextual factors, and emotional capacity. To be more concrete, they are teachers’ professional beliefs, different degrees of experts’ social supports (like experts’ praise and amending advice) and the teachers’ own emotion regulation as mentioned above.The data revealed that they developed similar pleasant feelings after the formal teaching because of the increase of their knowledge and the improvement of their teaching skills. However, the sources of their negative emotions are quite different. Mrs. B focused more on the formal teaching itself (including her own performance and her colleague’s behavior), like “I felt pity for the class delay,” “sorry for influencing Mrs. A’s lesson,” “very disappointed that Mrs. A told my students that they shouldn’t be influenced by my class delay.” While Mrs. A’s negative emotions are more related to her future teaching. She described in the narrative framework as follows:I feel a little ambivalent now…I’m afraid I’ll be stuck in that circle again where I’m not open-minded enough when designing lesson like before…Can I maintain such a state if there is no experts’ guidance and research assistant’s supervision?In this study, the teachers mentioned the most emotions at the exosystem level, followed by the microsystem, the mesosystem, and the macrosystem. Teacher emotion in chronosystem is shown through the whole process of the project. Most previous relevant studies found the highest proportion of positive emotions at the nearest microsystem, such as However, it was striking to find that the teachers in this study experienced a large number of negative emotions in mesosystem. In teacher collaboration, team members’ divergent willingness and conceptions of the collaboration space were closely intertwined with teacher emotion . And fruAlso, it is worth mentioning that the teachers reported relatively average positive and negative emotions at the macrosystem level, among which three are positive and two are negative. Teaching material reform is the main factor eliciting their negative emotions. It brought difficulties for teaching, such as heavy workload of preparing for new lessons, resulting in the generation of negative emotions. This finding aligns with studies conducted by Among all the ecological factors, one point that is important to discuss is that teachers’ different regulating capacities of emotions also influence the development of their emotions, even resulting in diverse holistic evolution of emotions in the whole process. According to The research questions sought to examine two Chinese senior high school English teachers’ dynamic emotional development process in their interaction with different ecological systems during the teaching improvement project and those ecological factors that may influence their emotional development. The analysis reveals the following findings:Firstly, the two participants developed 68 emotions, 39 positive and 29 negative emotions. And teacher emotion changed with time quite obviously at each stage of the project in the interaction with various systems. They evolved from positive to negative and, finally, positive predominantly. Among all the ecological systems, they developed the most emotions (28 emotions) at exosystem, and they developed the main negative emotions at mesosystem.Secondly, as for the ecological factors, there are three main factors that may influence teacher emotion, namely personal antecedents, contextual antecedents, and teachers’ emotional capacity. The personal antecedents like teachers’ knowledge, values, and skills and their family conditions and their different professional beliefs are the main factors leading to their change of emotions in microsystem. School climate  in organizational factors of contextual antecedents is the main reason for teacher emotion development in mesosystem. The development of the participants’ emotions within exosystem was mainly due to the experts’ social supports  of contextual antecedents and the difference of teachers’ emotional capacity (teachers’ emotion regulation). In macrosystem, policy factors  of contextual antecedents are the main factors that influence teachers’ development of emotions. And, at different stages in chronosystem, different factors have different roles in the fluctuation of teacher emotion.This study tells the story of two English teachers who participated in a teaching improvement project and investigates their emotional development in their interaction with ecological systems and those ecological factors that may influence their emotional development in the whole teaching improvement process. By qualitative analysis, this study provides three implications for teacher education.Firstly, it is necessary for teachers to take part in some teacher training/improving activities. Not only can they adapt to the education reform better, but also gain more confidence in their future teaching by interacting with exosystem.Secondly, teachers’ interaction with mesosystem is also a crucial part in their emotional development. Furthermore, a teacher education program should not only encourage collegial collaboration but also train teachers how to collaborate positively. Negative collaboration is even counterproductive to their development.Thirdly, emotional regulation training is also an essential issue. Teachers need to have some strategies of regulating emotions, which, to some extent, ensure teachers’ professional development. Consequently, teacher educators should also focus on the development of teachers’ emotional regulation teaching strategies.One limitation of this study concerns the generality of the findings. The current study is a case study focusing on two teachers and their emotions. The emotion development of the two participants within different ecological systems can hardly represent the overall senior high school English teacher emotion in each ecological system. The findings can neither reflect most teachers’ attitudes toward the same emotional episodes, such as teacher collaboration. Therefore, the generalization of the results may be limited. It would be interesting for future studies to expand an individual survey to a group survey to gain more universally applicable results. The second suggestion for future studies is to combine some quantitative instruments like a teacher emotion inventory or a questionnaire to promote the generalization of the results.The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/supplementary material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author/s.XS: whole research design and data collection and analysis. LY: data collection and analysis. Both authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.


In light of mounting evidence of the physical and psychological harms associated with solitary confinement, many correctional systems, state legislators, courts, and even international human rights bodies are increasingly recommending and implementing reforms to mitigate the harms of solitary confinement, if not abolish the practice entirely. In this piece, we examine three specific infrastructural changes to solitary confinement conditions and practices implemented in Washington state prisons with such harm minimization goals in mind: (1) building so-called “nature imagery rooms” to play videos of outdoor spaces, (2) eliminating punishments for self-harm, and (3) conducting daily cell-front wellness checks.Drawing on 183 in-depth qualitative interviews with both staff working in and people imprisoned in solitary confinement units conducted in Washington state restrictive housing units in 2017, we find that these three reforms not only resulted in limited successes but also generated new conflicts. Institutional logics such as deprivation, risk-management, and responsibilization ultimately impeded even the most modest attempts to mitigate the inherently harsh practice of solitary confinement. The limits of these reforms are due in part to individual choices made by people imprisoned in solitary confinement and staff working in these units, as well as the larger cultural norms that shape life in restrictive housing units.Incrementalist reforms aimed at softening the environment of solitary confinement may actually serve to increase the strain and stress experienced by people confined to and working within them. Even the most well-intentioned reforms, like those attempted by the Washington DOC, should be scrutinized in order to determine if they are producing the desired outcomes, or instead, reproducing a different, but nonetheless damaging set of harms to people imprisoned in solitary confinement. Further, even well-intentioned reforms are often stymied by the underlying institutional logics of restrictive housing spaces. Every year, tens of thousands of people imprisoned in U.S. prisons, jails, and immigrant detention centers experience solitary confinement – locked in cells the size of wheelchair-accessible bathroom stalls, where always-on fluorescent lights replace windows, and where opportunities for human contact are limited for days, weeks, months, and sometimes years on end , In this piece, we examine three specific infrastructural changes to solitary confinement conditions and practices implemented in Washington state prisons: 1) building so-called “nature imagery rooms” to play videos of outdoor spaces, (2) eliminating punishments for self-harm, and (3) conducting daily cell-front wellness checks. These changes were implemented over the past few years in the state’s five Intensive Management Units (IMUs), which house Washington’s highest security population. Each of the three changes was implemented as part of a statewide correctional effort to both limit solitary confinement use and mitigate the harsh conditions and health harms of solitary confinement when imposed  produced a competition between new logics of imprisoned people’s inherent dignity and “existing logics/cultures” of control, mistrust, and hypermasculinity  183 in-depth, qualitative interviews, conducted in 2017 with both people imprisoned in and staff working in Washington state’s five all-male Intensive Management Units, and (2) systematic analysis of Washington Department of Corrections (WADOC) policy reforms, specifically pertaining to segregation practices, enacted between 2008 and 2018. The University of California, Irvine, Office of Research Institutional Review Board approved this study (HS 2016–2816), and the WADOC Research Department reviewed this approval.Washington State is a mid-sized, fully-state funded prison system with the twelfth-lowest rate of incarceration in the United States  in the late 1990s . Prior to the start of the interview, researchers sought informed consent, including clarifying that: participation was entirely voluntary and unaccompanied by incentives, refusing or stopping the interview would not negatively affect the participant in any way; information shared would be anonymized and protected. Participants provided oral consent to participate in the interview, and interviews were audio recorded with permission. Interviewers used a semi-structured interview instrument with 96 questions, including both yes/no and open-ended questions about conditions of daily life, perceptions about health and access to medical treatment, and experiences with programs and reforms in the IMU specifically. Interviews lasted between 45 min and 3 h, averaging just under 2 h in duration.2In addition to interviews with imprisoned people, this team interviewed 77 staff members – correctional officers, supervisors, healthcare providers and social workers – working in WADOC IMUs. The research team strategically sampled staff to include staff working on each of the three daily shifts across each possible post and position  at each IMU. Staff interviews were held in an office or other private location of the staff member’s choosing, followed a thorough informed consent process, and were audio-recorded with permission. Interviews used a semi-structured interview instrument with 87 questions, including a combination of yes/no questions and open-ended follow up questions about IMU policies, job responsibilities, personal safety, health, working relationships, and policy reforms. Interviews lasted between 30 min and 3 h, again averaging just under 2 h in duration.All interviews completed an extensive 40-h training to learn about conditions in Washington IMUs, develop the instruments, and ensure consistency across interviewers. All interviews were recorded, transcribed, and uploaded into Atlas.ti for analysis.Six team members, who had also participated in interviews, inductively analyzed the data through line-by-line open coding of a subset of interview transcripts Charmaz, : 167 we In addition to identifying reforms explicitly discussed in interviews, we systematically searched the Washington Department of Corrections website for policy reforms related to solitary confinement enacted since 2008 . Among the 77 staff that participated in interviews: 74% were male, 84% were white, 57% were married, and the average age was 42. Overall demographic data for WADOC staff or those stationed in the five IMUs were not available, so we are unable to compare the staff participant demographics with overall demographics of IMU or WADOC staff.In the following sub-sections, we discuss three types of infrastructural reforms that the Washington DOC has implemented to address, and ideally reduce, the mental and physical harms of solitary confinement: nature rooms, routine suicide watch, and wellness checks. After describing when and how each reform was implemented, we discuss how both people imprisoned in IMUs and staff working in these units interpreted and experienced such reforms, and particularly how the built environment interacts with the institutional logics of control, deprivation, mistrust, and responsibilization, ultimately limiting both the uptake and the potential benefits of such reforms.Nalini Nadkarni, a forest ecologist, first proposed the idea of a nature imagery room, or a “blue room,” in a TED Talk in 2010. Nadkarini . In 2015Though the exact set-up of these rooms varies by facility, their basic features include a chair, a flat screen TV, and a nature video playing on that TV. By offering people imprisoned in solitary confinement a “screening window” into nature, blue rooms represent an explicit effort to change how the IMU’s built environment is experienced by imprisoned people and staff alike. Although, at the time of our interviews, three prisons had implemented blue rooms, very few respondents were familiar with them. This limited awareness of the existence of the blue rooms provides an initial indication of their limited effectiveness, either as a helpful resource for individuals imprisoned in solitary confinement, or as a transformative intervention re-structuring the institutional culture of solitary confinement. Indeed, respondents who were aware of the blue rooms were overwhelmingly negative in their evaluations of the intervention. Austin,First, finding a physical space within the IMU that could be “normalized” Crewe,  via the [T] hey take about 3 to 5 min just to like fully strap you to the thing. And I even told the C.O., man, I feel like I’m going to get the lethal injection or something because you’re getting like – like your feet are tied up, and your hands are tied up, and you’re tied up to the chair. It’s like really uncomfortable.”Second, the institutional logics of control dominating the IMU further undercut efforts at normalizing the built environment of the IMU. Joaquin, the one person among the 106 imprisoned interview subjects who had ever used a blue room, explained how the experience of being controlled eclipsed any experience of “nature” in the room:Moose in the Lake, featuring a five-minute loop where a moose, standing in a lake, shakes his ears and tail, birds chirping in the background. His overall assessment of the experience: “horrible”. For Joaquin and for staff, the governing institutional logic of the IMU as a space to control people, not as a space to screen nature videos, undermined attempts to remediate the barrenness of the environment.Once strapped in, Joaquin watched a nature video that the custody officer (C.O.) had selected for him from a short list: For custody staff, too, the ordeal associated with transporting people imprisoned in solitary confinement to and from the blue room ranked as their top complaint about the policy. In fact, Kevin, a member of the custody staff, described imprisoned people’s requests to go to the blue room as not only disruptive to the daily routine of the IMU, but as calculated to “stop our deal”: “If they want to piss us off – not me specifically, but us as a group – they’ll say, ‘I want to go to the nature imagery room. I need to do this. I’m feeling suicidal.’ And then they’ll go to the blue room, and they watch trees and stuff.” Kevin acknowledged that the blue room might “actually calm” people with “legit, honest mental health issues,” but for “90% of the guys in segregation,” requesting time in the blue room was new a weapon to wield against staff, disrupting their routines, and challenging (but not changing or softening) the institutional logic of control governing the IMU. Kevin’s perspective also reveals how the institutional logic of mistrust – interpreting any imprisoned person’s request, even one to exercise access to a new resource, as manipulative – thwarted access to the blue room. Indeed, in order to minimize this disruption to IMU routines, custody staff usually required people to choose between going to the indoor blue room to “see” nature or going outside to a concrete exercise yard, stripped of nature. “Choosing” the blue room, then, reinforced both the institutional logics of responsbilization  and deprivation (giving up limited time outside).Steve, a hearings officer, was the only staff participant to express any enthusiasm for the blue room. He stated, “I really – I like the concept, and I’m – I’m on board with it.” However, while he supported the theoretical idea, Steve’s thoughts on the reality of the blue room echo Austin’s description of it as a “failed policy.” Steve explains, “I think that we jumped in and created the policy for it. We kind of rushed it a little bit I think; unfortunately, there wasn’t enough input from the boots on the ground.”Analyzing the attempted implementation of blue rooms in the Washington IMUs offers a window into how the constant of control – over both movement and choice – pervades the IMU and thwarts reform efforts. The largely negative descriptions of the blue room as a failed reform reflect both structural impediments and the institutional logics of control and deprivation that are inherent to the IMU. In the end, attempts to integrate the softness of nature into the hardness of the concrete IMU reaffirmed the institutional imperative to manage and be managed.In another effort to respond to critiques of solitary confinement as harmful, Washington DOC implemented a series of policies in 2014 to limit and more humanely respond to self-harm in solitary confinement: eliminating disciplinary infractions for people who attempt to harm themselves while in solitary confinement and reacting, instead, by moving them into suicide watch cells Jenkins, . These rSome participants said they would not be punished for engaging in self-harm, as Caleb explained: “They used to punish us, but they stopped – they stopped infracting us for self-harm now.” However, the overwhelming majority of participants disagreed, believing instead that self-harm would still be met with some form of punishment. Bleakly, another participant named Luis stated: “If you try to harm yourself then you better do it right because otherwise, they’re going to punish you for it.” One such response to self-harm and suicidality that was still perceived and experienced as punishment by our respondents was “suicide watch,” in part because the experience of being “on watch” reinforced institutional logics of deprivation.They take everything that you have in your cell, and I think the first 24 h they put you in a holding cell. It’s pretty much as big as this [visitor booth] but without the desk and a stool. And you’re in there just butt naked and that’s the punishment. Then they take you back to your old cell. You don’t have anything. You don’t have no mattress, no linen, anything that you might be able to hang yourself with or anything sharp or whatever. Just recently somebody was acting out, and they put him out their cell naked. I mean, that’s pretty humiliating.Under Washington’s suicide-response reforms, incarcerated people who report feeling suicidal, engage in “genuine” self-harm, or are deemed a suicide risk by clinical or security staff are placed on suicide watch. While on watch, the person is removed from their cell and placed in an observation room with no property and minimal (if any) clothing. If they are not entirely naked, people on suicide watch are given a thick “suicide smock,” also referred to as a “turtle suit,” “green suit,” or as one respondent described it, a “human-sized potholder.” Unlike typical IMU cells, suicide watch cells have a large window and/or a camera that allow staff to monitor its occupant at all times. One participant described the process of suicide watch:The humiliation of being transported to and from the observation cell contributed to the perception that suicide watch was a punitive, not a therapeutic, response to severe mental distress. During this “walk of shame,” people on suicide watch are not only on display in front of staff from the observation cell, they also become a spectacle for all residents of the housing unit to see. Aside from functioning to incapacitate, extracting a person from their “house” and putting them on the display of suicide watch seems unlikely to resolve suicidal ideation, especially if there is no improvement in the material or social conditions of deprivation that may have induced self-harming behaviors in the first place. Rather than stop the potential for self-harm, suicide watch may actually compound the harms of solitary confinement by introducing yet another form of dehumanization in the service of “care.”Although several imprisoned participants reported prior near-lethal suicide attempts, which landed them in “outside” hospitals, where they received adequate care, most imprisoned participants who described experiencing suicidal ideation in the IMU landed on suicide watch, behind the “watch window.” Participants’ experiences of suicide watch call into question the intended purposes of moving people imprisoned in the IMU from one extreme form of isolation to another (even more extreme) form of deprivation. Removing any possessions, while eliminating the potential for certain forms of self-inflicted harm, also removes small comforts like books, radios, and writing materials that might otherwise be an essential aid in coping. Placement on suicide watch also moves the person away from their neighbors, who often serve as one of the few social supports in near total isolation. Instead, the person on suicide watch is left with nothing but more time and silence in which to ruminate, which poses a risk of exacerbating, rather than relieving, their mental health crisis. And yet, within the context of suicide watch, total isolation and material deprivation are institutionally framed as forms of care, rather than harm. Put differently, despite the department’s intentions to respond to self-harm and suicidal ideation in a less punitive fashion, institutional imperatives around risk management and institutional logics of deprivation, as well as mistrust, appeared to undermine the legitimacy of the reform as an actual form of care.In a third effort to respond to critiques of solitary confinement as harmful, Washington DOC implemented a cluster of policies to increase imprisoned people’s access to medical and mental health staff and care in restrictive housing units: increasing the number of mental health staff, shortening response times for “call out requests” to be seen by a healthcare provider, and requiring immediate responses to mental health emergencies. The most consistent way Washington DOC sought to ensure access to healthcare in the IMU: requiring a non-custody staff member  to conduct daily “wellness” checks for each person imprisoned in the IMU . The ding characterization can follow people imprisoned in solitary confinement back into lower custody units upon release from segregation.You’re pretty much being asked in front of everybody on the tier … I’m depressed … and I’m a wreck right now, and I’m not doing good. Instead of saying that, you’re like, no, I’m fine. Because you don’t want other people on the tier.. .. knowing your business and what’s going on with you. It’d be embarrassing. You don’t want to be made fun of and peer pressure.In addition to privacy concerns over mental health care, the broad visibility and lack of privacy associated with cell-front health care also affects whether or not a person imprisoned in solitary confinement seeks treatment for sensitive health concerns. Respondents reported being embarrassed by cell-front interactions, where they were expected to communicate their physical, mental, and emotional symptoms publicly to staff at their cell front. For example, Luke expressed:These visits function to put the person on display; a captive audience watches during the physical or mental health consultation with a provider. With only a few minutes to communicate their needs, this interaction can be pressured and stressful, especially when that provider is a woman. For example, Andrew worried that others on the unit would think he was “trying to flirt” because he was trying to explain his healthcare needs while also being “a gentleman.” These interactions are highly scrutinized by both staff and other people imprisoned in the IMU, a short cell-front interaction can be interpreted not only as a veiled attempt at flirtation, as Andrew worried, but as manipulation. Further, these interactions can also be viewed as violations of social code among other people imprisoned in solitary confinement. Isaac, for example, said that he declined offered mental health services because of the “politics” that dictate “you can’t talk to them.”And if they do come and see you, what they do is this embarrassment treatment. .. they’ll come over to your door and you explain everything that’s going on in front of your door. And they say it really loud, so everybody can hear. So the nurse will come over to your door, ‘Hey, he’s got a giant hemorrhoid with this-and-this.’ They’ll say it on the tier; let everybody know that you’re having problems with that. And then everybody knows your whole medical situation. And so if you’re having diarrhea, […] herpes – they’re putting it all on the tier!Against these pressures, our respondents also described how cell-front embarrassment deterred them from seeking out care by, for example, sending a medical kite requesting a visit. Here, Marco explained:Some interviewees attributed this practice to a lack of awareness among medical and mental health staff, while other participants, like Marco, perceived it as an intentional strategy to deter people imprisoned in the IMU from requesting health care – deterrence via embarrassment.In this way, institutional logics of mistrust , coupled with limitations of the physical environment of the prison (an absence of private spaces), undermined efforts to improve healthcare. As people imprisoned in these units are confined to their cells and unable to move about the unit without a two-man escort, each imprisoned person’s 12 × 8-in. cell front window serves as their portal to receive and ask for patient care. Again, the reality of the restrictive structural environment of segregation units and the institutional logics that pervade them undermine the efficacy and reach of efforts to improve the prison environment.By drawing upon the direct experiences of people imprisoned in solitary confinement and staff working in these units, our findings demonstrate how both institutional logics and physical infrastructure thwart the efficacy of reforming solitary confinement. Space constraints in IMUs interact with institutional logics of control, deprivation, and responsibilization and ultimately impede the most modest attempts at transforming the inherently harsh practice of solitary confinement. A fourth institutional logic – pervasive mistrust among prisoners and between prisoners and staff – created additional barriers to accessing the resources reforms attempted to provide .Our analysis of attempts to implement screening, watch, and drive thru window reforms reveals how institutional logics are actually reinforced under incrementalist reforms. In fact, the reforms we analyze, like those Rudes et al. analyzed in their study of PREA implementation . Reforms meant to promote therapeutic comfort, care, and wellness, flounder within a physical environment designed to control human bodies and deny meaningful social contact. Here, our findings help to shed light on the critical role of environmental capacity in reducing the harm not just of incarceration generally Jewkes, , but of choosing to go to the blue room instead of yard, choosing to speak to a mental health staff at your cell front, or even choosing to self-harm as a means to “feel” something beyond one’s own isolation. Staff agency – including to believe or not believe a person imprisoned in solitary confinement, or to see a person imprisoned in IMU as worthy of care as opposed to deserving only of punishment – is, thus, pitted against imprisoned people’s agency and their decisions to take “advantage” of reform efforts or not.Taken together, our findings suggest that, despite intentions to improve conditions of confinement, the aforementioned reforms operate and are perceived as window dressing. Extreme isolation is made possible through repressive spaces that are both physically and culturally  resistant to change. Virtual simulations of the natural world and reactive and short-lived social encounters through suicide watch windows and cell front checks ultimately fail in practice because they do not seek to transform the institutional logics  that define the practice of solitary confinement, including the fundamental deprivation of liberty in response to perceived risk. Regardless of growing recognition that people imprisoned in solitary confinement require adequate care to prevent mental and physical deterioration, staff perceive people imprisoned in the IMU as persistent threats and purposeful manipulators. This logic of mistrust inherently conflicts with incrementalist reforms that hinge upon a logic of responsibilization, requiring people imprisoned in solitary confinement to advocate for and assert themselves – whether that’s Just as Rudes et al.,  argue thBy examining how incrementalist reforms are mobilized in a structure of extreme confinement like the IMU, and how they are experienced by both people imprisoned in solitary confinement and staff working in these units, we show how the transformative potential of these reforms is eclipsed. As our participants have described, the blue room, suicide watch, and cell-front checks generate new conflicts between people imprisoned in solitary confinement and correctional staff, which only add to the strain and drain of solitary confinement. A room designed for relaxation feels like an execution, expressing suicidal ideation results in shame and indignity, and interventions meant to make healthcare more accessible inadvertently encourage its avoidance.windows of reform demonstrate the significance of penal aesthetics and geography in thinking about contemporary punishment and the movement to either reform or abolish solitary confinement. Not only do incrementalist reforms reflect a particular re-imagining of solitary confinement – that it can become a caring and therapeutic space – but, through their implementation, they seemingly attempt to dull the severity of isolation. Accordingly, within an incrementalist perspective, a softened prison aesthetic is at least preferable to a hardened one. What if, however, environmental softening of the prison only produces different forms of harm, as opposed to actually reducing pain and suffering?Questions of futility and ineffectiveness aside, what we have framed as option to decide on what nature images to watch, to disclose if they are considering self-harm, or to interact with a health professional within earshot of others. Providing these options may momentarily disrupt the monotony of solitary or intervene upon an immediate mental health crisis, yet these options ultimately require imprisoned people to conduct themselves as manageable and docile individuals in the face of institutional logics framing them as threatening and manipulative. All the while, people imprisoned in solitary confinement are still spending nearly 22 h in their cell, alone, where physical and mental harms can continue to compound. As such, infrastructural and incrementalist reforms like those discussed in this paper may, instead, reinforce the practice of solitary by seemingly softening its edges, thereby making it all the more difficult to fundamentally change, let alone dismantle  superficiality of solitary confinement reforms raises a larger question: whether attempts to reform solitary confinement – as opposed to do away with the practice entirely – within the context of mass incarceration reform can be anything other than superficial. The very emergence of the modern-day prison is itself a product of penal reform, where incrementalist reforms shifted the shape of the prison, the fundamental nature and mechanics remained unchanged. Perhaps, given this especially complicated nature of prison reform generally, and solitary confinement specifically, any attempt to reform solitary confinement necessarily can only be window dressing.Despite the rather bleak characterization of reform efforts described by staff and people imprisoned in solitary confinement, this is not to say that efforts aimed at minimizing the harms of solitary confinement are for naught. The only way to learn whether a reform has succeeded or failed is to implement it – and then allow for analysis. This speaks to whether prison administrations are reform-oriented or reform-adverse, which is a crucial distinction in understanding the successes of and lesson learned from incrementalist reforms. Even the most well-intentioned reforms, like those attempted by the Washington DOC, should be scrutinized in order to determine if they are producing the desired outcomes or instead, reproducing a different, but nonetheless damaging set of harms to people imprisoned in solitary confinement. Further, even well-intentioned reforms are often stymied by the underlying institutional logics and norms of restrictive housing spaces, and efforts to directly address culture may serve to create positive change in ways that reforms focused on policy or built environment alone cannot. One of Washington state’s most recent reform efforts confronts this issue of culture, through a partnership with Amend, an organization that uses a public health approach to change correctional culture Amend, . Perhaps


Mental health problems among workers have become an issue in Japan. The working environment for civil servants is becoming excessively stressful, and there is a need to prevent the onset of depression. In addition to stress at the workplace and at home, social capital has been reported as a factor associated with depression. This study examined whether workplace social capital reduces the association between depression and work-related stress or depression and home-related stress.A total of 3015 Japanese civil servants (1867 men and 1148 women) from Toyama Prefecture were included in this study. Data on depression and workplace social capital, work status, work stress, work–life balance, and physical health were collected.The odds ratio for depression was higher for both men and women with low workplace social capital. For those with low workplace social capital, the adjusted odds ratio for depression was 2.93  for men and 2.46  for women. After adjusting for workplace social capital, the associations between depression and low job position, low job support, and moderate family–to–work conflict declined in men and were no longer significant. For women, the strength of the association between depression and unmarried status along with moderate control at work decreased and also lost significance. When the ORs for depression were stratified by high and low workplace social capital and compared with the ORs before stratification, the ORs for depression of long working hours and work–to–family conflict increased for both men and women in the low workplace social capital group.Workplace social capital mitigated the effect of workplace and family stress leading to depression in both men and women. Suicide is the leading cause of death among workers in their twenties and thirties, second among those in their forties, and third or fourth among those in their fifties . About 9The work environment for civil servants is becoming increasingly difficult. Salaries are steadily declining compared to several years ago, the number of new hires is being scaled back, and positions vacated by retirees are being cut. At the same time, the workload is becoming more diverse and complex and the systems and public services that are in place are rarely reduced, meaning that the amount of work per person increases every year.Under these circumstances, more and more civil servants suffer physical and mental health problems, such as depression, which can lead to suicide. Long-term sick leave among civil servants in 2019 was 2700 out of 100,000, of which 60% was due to “mental and behavioral disorders” . As the In order to avoid this cycle, it is important that mental health problems among workers are recognized as early as possible and efforts made to address the situation before it results in serious consequences. Previous studies have reported additional causes of depression among workers beyond overwork, including job stress, impaired work–life balance, and physical health . Other rLow workplace social capital has been reportedly associated with mental health issues around the world –19. HoweThis study examined whether workplace social capital reduces the association between depression and work–life condition, job stress, work–life balance, and physical health, accounting for gender differences.This study has a cross-sectional study design.The Japanese Civil Service Study is an international collaboration with the British Civil Service Study  and has been conducted regularly since 1998 . The subThe items in the questionnaire were selected primarily from the Whitehall Study and reviewed by Whitehall researchers. The survey items included demographics (age and gender), depression (CES-D scores), workplace social capital, work–life condition , job stress , work–life balance , and physical health (sleep duration and presence of longstanding illness). Variables other than workplace social capital were selected because a previous study on the same subjects  reportedWork–life condition included marital status, job position, work hours, and shift work. Marital status was categorized as “married” or “unmarried”; job position was categorized as “low grade,” “middle grade,” or “high grade”; work hours was categorized as “<9 hours ,” “9–11 h,” or “> 11 h”; and shift work was categorized as “yes” or “no.”Karasek’s model  of job dThe Family-Work Conflict questions were used to assess work–life balance, consisting of 8 items, 4 for Family–to–work conflict and 4 for Work–to–family conflict . ResponsIn terms of physical health, sleep duration was categorized as “< 6 h,” “6–8 h,” and “≥9 h,” and longstanding illness was measured by asking the respondents to answer the question, “Do you currently have a chronic disease or illness?” with two choices, “yes” or “no.”The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) was used as a measure of depression and is a highly valid and reliable test . The CESWorkplace social capital refers to 3 items in the standard version of the New Brief Job Stress Questionnaire : “In our2) test. Age-adjusted Mantel–Haenszel tests were conducted to examine the relationship between workplace social capital and each variable, and the results were compared for each gender. In order to examine the association between workplace social capital and depression-related factors, the proportion of each depression-related factor in the high and low workplace social capital groups was compared on the basis of gender using the χ2 test. Logistic regression analyses were conducted for both genders, with the presence of depression as the dependent variable and each item as an independent variable. Several multivariate models [The proportional differences between subjects’ characteristics were compared on the basis of gender using the Chi square . Workplace social capital mitigated the associations between depression and stresses from work, home, or physical health in both men and women.In terms of the association between workplace social capital and each variable, men and women who had low control at work, high work demands, low work support, and high work–to–family conflict felt significantly less workplace social capital. A high proportion of men who had a low job position or longstanding illness and women who were unmarried or sleeping less felt significantly less workplace social capital. This suggests that job stress and work–life balance are strongly related to workplace social capital in both men and women.For both men and women, the OR of low workplace social capital for depression was significantly higher;  for men  for women. Previous studies have examined the association with depression in men, adjusting for variables of work–life condition, job stress, work–life balance, and physical health, and the OR between depression and low job status was still significant , 35. HowAlthough workplace social capital and depression showed a strong association with workplace social capital, after adjusting for all variables, long hours and high job demands were no longer associated with depression for both men and women. This confirms the results of previous studies –8, whichRegardless of high or low workplace social capital, home–work/work–family conflict and short sleep duration were strongly associated with depression. The OR of depression to family–to–work conflict was not reduced, especially among women. A previous study reported poor work–life balance, especially among Japanese women . This maA difference was found between the genders for the variable of job stress. For men, control at work was an important factor in managing stress, whereas for women, job support was more significant. It was inferred that for men, an environment in which they could work under their own control was desirable for their mental health, while for women, an environment in which they could receive substantial work support from their colleagues at work was desirable.When stratified by high and low workplace social capital, the ORs of long working hours and work–to–family conflict for depression were higher in the low workplace social capital group for both men and women. This suggests that workplace social capital may mitigate work-related stress and reduce the risk of depression.The association between depression and job status, job stress, and poor work–life balance was mitigated by workplace social capital, indicating that fostering workplace social capital may reduce or prevent the risk of depression. By gender, workplace social capital reduced the association of depression with low job position and low job support, particularly for men. For women, workplace social capital reduced the association between depression and being unmarried and working shifts. Because men and women may differ in their positions at work and at home, the roles they play, and their desired work environment, it is possible that a work environment that includes workplace social capital according to gender characteristics, i.e., a workplace where people understand and acknowledge each other, where men can get a high control at work, and where women can get actual job support, may be effective in maintaining and improving the mental health of workers.There are several limitations to this study. First, this is a cross-sectional study and it is not possible to rule out the possibility of reverse causation, i.e., people with depression tend to feel that they have low workplace social capital. However, a prospective cohort study of Finnish public sector workers reported that there was a significant association between low workplace social capital and depression, even after adjusting for psychological distress at baseline . BecauseWorkplace social capital for both men and women showed independent associations between depression and workplace variables; however, workplace social capital reduces the association between depression and work–life condition, job stress, work–life balance, and physical health. Although future longitudinal studies are needed to ascertain the relationship between depression and workplace social capital, work situation, work and family stress, and physical health, it may be possible to reduce or prevent the risk of depression in workers by creating a working environment that fosters workplace social capital.