Educational moods: Exploring the concept of classroom climate from a sensory-phenomenological perspective

The value of sustaining an open and positive classroom climate for student’s academic and socio-emotional development is well documented in educational research. Referring to the prevailing mood or atmosphere of the classroom, the concept is meant to capture the day-to-day experiences of teachers and students on a collective rather than individual level. At the same time, the notion of ‘classroom climate’ seems to belong to a language of educational impreciseness, rendering it sometimes too vague and at other times too technical for capturing the lived and embodied meaning of classroom life. Inspired by Gert Biesta’s call for a world-centred education, the paper offers a sensory-phenomenological analysis of the concept of classroom climate by unfolding the concept in the double gesture of mapping and reconstructing. By differentiating some of the meanings of classroom climate in previous research, and by drawing on Martin Heidegger’s phenomenology of Stimmung and on Rita Felski’s work on mood and attunement, the paper explores what a more precise and meaningful way of speaking about classroom climate and what matters educationally in sustaining a positive classroom climate may look like. To this end, the notion of ‘educational moods’ offers semantic resources not yet considered within educational research.