Editorial [International Journal of Emotional Education, 15(2)]

The Covid-19 pandemic has provided a window of opportunity for education and schools to become more caring and compassionate, with wellbeing and social and emotional education becoming more established as a primary goal of post-covid education. Such a process, however, needs to start with the adults themselves, with initial teacher education becoming a transformative personal and social process where teachers develop the requisite competences to become caring, responsive and inclusive educators and mentors through an experiential, reflective and collaborative approach. In the first paper in this edition, Falcón-Linares (Spain) evaluates an affective pedagogy action research programme aimed at arousing positive emotions such as kindness and tenderness amongst preservice teachers through an integrated explicit and vicarious learning. The narratives of over 360 student teachers highlight the role of affective teacher education in fostering the growth of their professional identity and of an ethic of care in the classroom.