education
Education is the transmission of knowledge and skills and the development of character traits. Formal education occurs within a structured institutional framework, such as public schools, following a curriculum. Non-formal education als ...
al method that aims to foster social and emotional skills within school curricula. SEL is also referred to as "social-emotional learning," "socio-emotional learning," or "social–emotional literacy." In common practice, SEL emphasizes social and emotional skills to the same degree as other subjects, such as math, science, and reading. Furthermore, SEL emphasizes an importance upon preparing students to become knowledgeable, responsible, and caring members of society when they reach adulthood.
The application of SEL (and similar educational theories) within public schools has become increasingly controversial since 2020, especially within the United States. Many studies continue to be conducted, examining the impact of social emotional learning in school curriculum.
History
SEL began in the 1960s at the
Yale School of Medicine
The Yale School of Medicine is the medical school of Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813. It is the sixth-oldest m ...
in its Child Study Center. There, Professor James Comer started the Comer School Development Program where he focused on the education systems of low-income
African-American
African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...
communities, particularly the elementary schools in
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is List ...
due to their poor academic report cards. The school implemented programs that focused on the social and emotional needs of the students. The approach spread to the New Haven public schools due to their proximity to Yale University.
Roger Weissberg
Roger P. Weissberg (1951—September 5, 2021) was a researcher in the field of psychology. He was the NoVo Foundation Endowed Chair in Social and Emotional Learning and LAS/UIC Distinguished Professor of Psychology & Education at University of Il ...
,
Timothy Shriver
Timothy Perry Shriver (born August 29, 1959) is an American disability rights activist, film producer, and former educator who has been Chairman of Special Olympics since 1996 and is the founder of UNITE. He is a member of the prominent Shriver ...
, researchers, and educators established the New Haven Social Development program in 1987. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) was founded in 1994, and participants published ''Promoting Social and Emotional Learning: Guidelines for Educators'' in 1997.
In 2019, the concept of Transformative Social and Emotional Learning (Transformative SEL, TSEL or T-SEL) was developed. Transformative SEL aims to guide students to "critically examine root causes of inequity, and to develop collaborative solutions that lead to personal, community, and societal well-being." In 2020, CASEL updated the definition of SEL to include a stronger focus on equity, and added information about Transformative SEL as one form of SEL implementation that can focus on equity.
Components
CASEL defines the five main components of SEL as:
#
Self-awareness
In philosophy of self, philosophy, self-awareness is the awareness and reflection of one's own personality or individuality, including traits, feelings, and behaviors. It is not to be confused with consciousness in the sense of qualia. While ...
: The skill of having knowledge of one's own emotions and developing a positive
self-concept
In the psychology of self, one's self-concept (also called self-construction, self-identity, self-perspective or self-structure) is a collection of beliefs about oneself. Generally, self-concept embodies the answer to the question ''"Who am I? ...
.
# Self-management: The ability to regulate one's own emotions and monitor one's own behaviors. This also pertains to intrinsic motivation and setting personal goals.
#
Social awareness
Social consciousness (or social awareness) is collective consciousness shared by individuals within a society.Relationship skills: The skill to foster relationships and communicate within them.
# Responsible decision-making: The ability to solve problems and hold one's self accountable.
CASEL also defines what it calls the best methods for implementing SEL at different levels, such as classrooms, schools, families and caregivers, and communities. These ideas are intended to help students to live socially and emotionally healthy lives both during and after their time in the school system, improving academic performance by reducing stress.
Benefits
According to Ammar Al-Ghabban, an independent education consultant, SEL fosters empathy and compassion, and is imperative for a successful school that effectively supports the mental wellbeing of staff and students. Speaking on the importance of empathy, molecular biologist John Medina states that the more empathy training students as well as teachers get, the better their grades will become. He says that it is important to make the classroom feel like a safe place for students to learn.
Studies have shown that programs such as SPARK have been a successful tool for schools with a diverse population to introduce and encourage SEL skills.
The implementation of SEL is shown to be statistically associated with improving the
social dynamics
Social dynamics (or sociodynamics) is the study of the behavior of groups and of the interactions of individual group members, aiming to understand the emergence of complex social behaviors among microorganisms, plants and animals, including h ...
of schools by decreasing physical aggression and reducing bullying of students with disabilities. SEL is statistically linked with improving academic performance by 11 percentiles. Additionally, the implementation of SEL programs in schools as early as kindergarten is associated with decreasing likelihood of students growing up to use public housing, having involvement with the police, or spending time in a detention facility.
Proponents of SEL say it helps students to understand and control their emotions as well as learn to accept and understand the emotions of their classmates as they navigate through their educational careers. SEL is said to be important for teachers to understand and demonstrate in their classrooms in order to make the learning process more natural and easier to adjust to for students. Things like responsible decision making and positive relationship building are much easier to learn for students who are constantly exposed to examples of the behavior. When SEL is woven into lessons and the school environment, students relate better to the content, are more motivated to learn, and understand the curriculum more easily. Proponents say SEL can also lead to students learning important skills for the workplace as well, like teamwork, time management, and communication skills. Despite this, only three states (Illinois, Kansas, and Pennsylvania) have SEL standards for their K–12 curriculum.
Controversies
Conservative opposition
Some conservative publications claim that social-emotional learning is a "Trojan horse" used to bring ideas they describe as
critical race theory
Critical race theory (CRT) is an academic field focused on the relationships between Social constructionism, social conceptions of Race and ethnicity in the United States census, race and ethnicity, Law in the United States, social and political ...
,
sexual orientation
Sexual orientation is an enduring personal pattern of romantic attraction or sexual attraction (or a combination of these) to persons of the opposite sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or to both sexes or more than one gender. Patterns ar ...
,
gender identity
Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent and consistent with the in ...
, and what they view as
left-wing politics
Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social ...
to the classroom. Robert Pondiscio of the right-leaning
think tank
A think tank, or public policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governme ...
the
American Enterprise Institute
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, known simply as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is a center-right think tank based in Washington, D.C., that researches government, politics, economics, and social welfare ...
claims SEL changes "the role of the teacher, from a
pedagogue
Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political, and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...
to something more closely resembling a
psychotherapist
Psychotherapy (also psychological therapy, talk therapy, or talking therapy) is the use of Psychology, psychological methods, particularly when based on regular Conversation, personal interaction, to help a person change behavior, increase hap ...
, social worker, or member of the clergy - no less concerned with a child's beliefs, attitudes and values." Those opposed to SEL have cited CASEL's 2020 initiative, "Transformative SEL", as further evidence that SEL has left-wing political overtones; "Transformative SEL" lists among its goals "interrogating social norms, disrupting and resisting inequities, and co-constructing equitable and just solutions."
Privacy and information collection concerns
In some school districts, students are asked to enter their current mood or feelings into an app every day, as part of the social-emotional learning curriculum. This has caused some to worry about parents being excluded from the process, as well as about the protection of students' privacy.
Policy
Support
U.S. congressman Tim Ryan introduced H.R.4626 - Social Emotional Learning for Families Act of 2019 (SELF Act) on 18 October 2019 in the 116th Congress. The purpose of this bill was to create a grant program that supports the creation and implementation of a program in schools that helps to develop social and emotional habits. This bill was cosponsored only by Representative
Debbie Mucarsel-Powell
Deborah Mucarsel-Powell ( ; born January 18, 1971) is an American politician and academic administrator who served as the United States House of Representatives, U.S. representative for from 2019 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party (Unit ...
.
Opposition
In February 2022, Oklahoma senator
Shane Jett
Shane David Jett (born December 5, 1974) is an American politician from the state of Oklahoma, who is the state senator from Senate District 17, which includes northern Pottawatomie County and eastern Oklahoma County. He was a member of the ...
proposed a bill in the state legislature which aims to prohibit public and charter schools from promoting or applying SEL concepts using public or private funds.
In April 2022, the
Florida Department of Education
The Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) is the state education agency of Florida. It governs public education and manages funding and testing for local educational agencies (school boards). It is headquartered in the Turlington Building ( ...
(FDOE) published a list of mathematics instructional materials that aligned with the state's Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking (BEST) standards. Among the submitted textbooks for FDOE review, 41% were rejected for a variety of reasons including the "unsolicited addition" of SEL in mathematics.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the National public health institutes, national public health agency of the United States. It is a Federal agencies of the United States, United States federal agency under the United S ...