SEL – Social Emotional Learning

Addressing the social, emotional, and academic needs of youth from these historically marginalized groups is a pressing matter. According to current projections, the U.S. will be a “minority-majority” nation in less than three decades . An increasing number of school-aged children and youth reside in poor or low-income families and communities. Racial/ethnic and class inequalities in education, health, and wealth compromise the life chances of these youth, which ultimately undermines the vitality of their communities and threatens the nation’s security and productivity.

We recognize that the circumstances surrounding marginalization, exploitation, and oppression are varied and complex. In this brief, we focus primarily on issues of educational equity and SEL with regard to race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status as a first step toward addressing this complexity.

Racial/ethnic and class issues continue to vex American society. Cultural analysis suggests that issues of racism derive largely from an over-emphasis on the accumulation of wealth within American culture. Historically, this cultural value prompted some to exploit others for personal advancement. White elites promulgated racialized and cultural stereotypes to recruit poor and working Whites into a hierarchical economic system that exploited them, but also empowered them to oppress and further exploit people of color. Meanwhile, these stereotypes inculcated within people of color a sense of dehumanization and willingness to accept marginalized status.

Consistent with the pursuit of educational equity, we recently offered the concept of transformative SEL to reflect our interest in making explicit issues such as power, privilege, prejudice, discrimination, social justice, empowerment, and self determination in the field of SEL . Transformative SEL connotes a process whereby students and teachers build strong, respectful relationships founded on an appreciation of similarities and differences, learn to critically examine root causes of inequity, and develop collaborative solutions to community and societal problems.

These norms are even more problematic when wealth and Whiteness are conflated and uncritically accepted as indicators of success. This fosters a sense of White racial entitlement and dominance, as well as negative biases and stereotypes about people of color and those from low-income backgrounds.

Schools, like most other U.S. social institutions, tend to prioritize prevailing middle-class, American culture.

The current U.S. educational context requires youth of color and other marginalized groups to cope with acculturative stress and ethnic/racial and class-based discrimination. The cultural and ERI aspects of self-awareness discussed above could provide more adaptive coping strategies by enabling youth to see acculturative pressures and discrimination as reflections of societal ills rather than as personal affronts. Instead of becoming emotion-focused and disengaged, students could become more focused on identifying situational or societal challenges and pursuing individual and collective solutions. Sounds like ACTIVISM!

Students from diverse racial/ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds are often placed at risk by the dominant culture of schools. 

Additionally, U.S. and global diversity is growing, leading to greater interaction among people from various racial/ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. Teaching GLOBALISM?!

A critical social awareness would help young people recognize and distinguish among the potentially competing cultural and race-related messages and expectations. Students would benefit from noticing the importance placed on various types of diversity—both for members of their group and for other distinct groups—in specific classroom, school, and community settings. This includes discerning issues of race and class in each context and the cultural demands and affordances of these settings. ACTIVISM!

Further, students would be able to gauge whether and in what ways they are involved in power relationships and dynamics that disadvantage others. ACTIVISM!

However, transformative SEL also requires explicit critical examination of the root causes of racial and economic inequities to foster the desired critical self-awareness and social awareness in young people.

This may be due in part to the cultural and class assumptions and preferences that most teachers have, regardless of their own racial/ethnic background. Such awareness would aid teachers in avoiding the fallacies of color-blindness, power-blindness, and humanist-caring, which obscure the sociopolitical realities of youth of color and low-resourced students. We assume that these competencies would better position teachers to be more equitable and facilitative of empowering students from diverse backgrounds. Given that most teachers are middle-class White women and students are increasingly diverse, it is critical that adult assessment include indicators of race and class identity, attitudes, and beliefs.