The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence, Social and Emotional Capacity, Empathy and Classroom Climate among Teachers

Abstract

Teachers are required to be aware and responsive to students' implicit personal needs and not just to explicit ones. This ability is attributed to the sensitivity, emotional intelligence, social and emotional ability of teachers , as well as empathy towards the students. The aim of the This study was toexamine the relationship between emotional intelligence, social and emotional ability , empathy and classroom climate among 400 Arab elementary school teachers in the north of the State of Israel.. The research design was quantitative-correlative. . Results of the current study indicated that Emotional intelligence components, notably emotional attention and clarity, displayed strong intercorrelations, with scores hovering around a moderate mean of 3.00. significant Gender differences emerged in areas like empathy, with males scored slightly higher than girls. In predicting classroom climate, initial regression models with demographic and professional characteristics explained only 1.7% of the variance. However, the inclusion of emotional intelligence substantially increased the explained variance to 38.5%. Moreover, addition of social competence and empathy in the model raised the explained variance to 47.8%, with emotional intelligence and empathy emerging as strong positive predictors. These findings underscore the significant influence of emotional intelligence and empathy on classroom climate, beyond demographic and professional factors. It is essential for the educational professionals and for policy makers, to pay more attention to the range of possible interventions to improve teachers' use of emotions. Teaching the subject matter takes up most of a given lesson, but students are more connected to opportunities for discussion, asking questions, and sharing experiences.