Promoting and marginalising young children’s social and emotional experiences through SEL

ABSTRACT

This paper raises questions about social and emotional learning (SEL) as a facilitator of all children’s social, emotional and behavioural skills. Drawing on qualitative data, in the form of group and individual interviews with a range of primary school and early years staff members across four case studies, the findings indicate that children’s social and emotional behaviours linked to social class, gender and ethnicity were targeted through SEL, revealing a propensity for staff to endorse a normative model of experiences for young children. By clarifying some of the concerns around such monist approaches to SEL, I make the case for an agonistic model that not only embraces difference and contestation, but uses them as a focus for learning.

KEYWORDS:

• Social and emotional learning
• social class
• gender
• ethnicity
• agonism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Peter Wood, is a senior lecturer in Education and Early Childhood Studies in the School of Education at Liverpool John Moores University. His teaching and research interests stem from his time working in primary schools as a Behaviour Support Worker and Learning Mentor. His current research focusses on the interpretation and use of social and emotional learning schemes with a particular emphasis on the home-school relationship, teachers’ perceptions of parenting, and how they influence practices concerned within the development of children’s social, emotional and behavioural skills in schools. Stemming from these research interests is a concern regarding the marginalisation and demonisation of the values, practices and behaviours of specific groups of children in our schools.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Economic and Social Research Council.