Cite as: Humphrey, N., Lendrum, A., Wigelsworth, M. & Greenberg, M. (2016). Editorial.Cambridge Journal of Education [invited article], 46, 271-275.
Editorial Introduction
Neil Humphrey1, Ann Lendrum1, Michael Wigelsworth1 and Mark Greenberg2
1 Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester, UK
2 Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Centre, Penn State University, USA
Universal, school-based social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions seek to improve the social-emotional competencies (e.g. self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, responsible decision-making) of students through explicit instruction in the context of learning environments that are safe, caring, well-managed and participatory(Humphrey, 2013; Weissberg, Durlak, Domitrovich, & Gullotta, 2015). SEL has become a growing movement in school systems around the world. The phrase ‘SEL’ is thought to have been first coined in the United States (US) during early meetings of what would become the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) in the early 1990s(CASEL, 2004). The US-based SEL movement has gained significant traction in the years following, including the updating of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (aka ‘No Child Left Behind’) to include social and emotional competencies as part of Title IV (Successful, Safe and Healthy Students). However, SEL curriculum and instruction are not a required element of US education. In England, the phrase ‘emotional literacy’ was the preferred nomenclature to describe a body of work that emerged in numerous Local Authorities (including, principally, Southampton) in the early 2000s and was subsequently formalised as the social and emotional aspects of learning (SEAL) programme by the then Department for Education and Skills (Department for Children Schools and Families, 2007; Department for Education and Skills, 2005). Equivalent developments have been seen in many countries including (but by no means limited to) Northern Ireland, Australia, Sweden and Singapore in recent years (Humphrey, 2013).
However, attention to social and emotional aspects of education is arguably nothing new(Dixon, 2012). Plato wrote about it in The Republic in 380 BC (Weare, 2004); likewise, Dewey’s progressive education movement in the 19th century was characterised by a strong emphasis on the development of social skills. What is perhaps different about the contemporary model of SEL is the dual emphasis on the ‘taught’ (e.g. explicit instruction) and the ‘caught’ (e.g. socialisation practices) in fostering social-emotional competence, along with a much more structured, systematic approach than was seen in its forebears. The modern version of SEL also has, at its core, the ‘scientific epistemology’ (Bird, 2010) embodied in fields that most strongly influence it – e.g. developmental psychology and prevention science. This inevitably brings SEL into conflict with some critical educational theorists and researchers, who baulk at what they regard as the application of an ‘objective list theory’ approach to children’s emotional experiences(Watson, Emery, & Bayliss, 2012) or who see its prominence in education as a further sign of the dangerous escalation of ‘therapeutic culture’ (Ecclestone & Hayes, 2008). Concerns are also raised about the privileging of certain forms of research evidence (such as randomised controlled trials); in this way, the SEL field offers an interesting case study of the broader on-going debate that surrounds the ‘what works’ agenda in education (e.g. Biesta, 2010).
In England, the rapid emergence of SEL in the 2000s can be seen as beinginitially driven by governmental concerns about anti-social behaviour and, perhaps, a perceived need to capitalise on the popularity of Goleman’s (1996)Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ among teachers (Humphrey, 2012). Thus, SEAL was launched as a core component of New Labour’s Behaviour and Attendance strategy and following a brief pilot was scaled up to be implemented in most primary schools from 2005 and secondary schools from 2007. However, the arrival of the Conservative-Liberal coalition in 2010 saw a quick ‘about-face’ in relation to SEAL (and, by association, SEL). In autumn 2010, they stated, "The Coalition is continuing with SEAL. SEAL… [is] what the Department (for Education) has set out in terms of encouraging emotional intelligence", but by early 2011 a decision was made to discontinue the programme entirely: "the lack of any overall positive impact from SEAL reinforces the need to prevent further time and resource expenditure on this project" (BBC Radio 4, 2011). This denouncement was part of sweeping changes led by then secretary of state for education Michael Gove which were characterised by a ‘zero sum game’ approach which, “increasingly encourage[d] schools to maximise students’ academic attainment and ignore their broader well-being, personal development, and health” (Bonell et al., 2014, p.3078).
More recently, SEL in England has been granted a new lease of life. The austerity years have seen a discursive shift that emphasizes the importance of concepts such as ‘resilience’, ‘character’ and ‘grit’ in education (for example, in late 2014 the Department for Education announced a range of measures to encourage schools to implement so-called ‘character education’ approaches). This was not altogether unexpected: “Interest in resilience… seems to rise in troubled times” (Masten, 2014, p.3). However, even a cursory glance at the kind of work now being carried out in the name of resilience/character/grit education highlights the ‘DNA’ of SEL throughout. For example, City Year UK, one the recipients of the Department for Education’s (DFE) inaugural Character Awards, work to help pupils develop their “relationship skills and social-emotional awareness” (Department for Education, 2015).
Alongside this, major cuts to child mental health servicesin most Local Authorities since 2010 (Young Minds, 2013)have had theeffect of increasing pressure on schools to ‘pick up the pieces’ (O’Hara, 2014). As talk of a crisis in children’s mental health looms large, government policy encouraging schools to take a more central role in promoting emotional wellbeing has come to the fore once more, with a particular focus on early prevention and intervention (see for example Department for Education, 2016; Department of Health, 2015). As above, save for an added emphasis on explicit awareness raising of mental health difficulties and associated issues (e.g. identification and referral processes), this is essentially ‘old wine in a new bottle’, and we are very clearly in SEL territory once more. For example, in the DFE advice document for school staff on mental health and behaviour, the chapter on strategies to promote positive mental health directly highlights social skills and emotional intelligence/literacy as being among the, “inner resources that [children] can draw on as a buffer when negative or stressful things happen”, while also noting the importance of a “sense of connectedness or belonging to school” as a protective factor (Department for Education, 2016, p.19).
This renewal of interest in SEL is supported by recent research published by the Early Intervention Foundation (EIF), which highlights the predictive utility of childhood social-emotional competencies for mental health and labour market outcomes in later life (Goodman, Joshi, Nasim, & Tyler, 2015) and the evidence that enhancing such competencies through explicit instruction can promote a range of positive outcomes (Clarke, Morreale, Field, Hussein, & Barry, 2015). However, the research also documents considerable variability in current provision across the education and youth sectors, a complex delivery landscape, and a need for high quality provision (Yeo & Graham, 2015). Thus, the evidence promoted through the EIF suggests that SEL is important in terms of later life outcomes, can be enhanced in and through school, and that attention to the process of implementation is vital if success is to be achieved.
Given the above, the publication of this special issue of CJE is extremely timely. As SEL findsitself at the centre of efforts to improve children’s well-being in educational contexts once more, the invited submissions by esteemed authors bring together the latest research findings on key issues and debates in the field, including (but not limited to)assessment (Denham et al), implementation (Durlak) and intervention outcomes (Wigelsworth et al). We are extremely pleased with these articles and are grateful to the authors for their splendid contributions, each of which will doubtlessly become important reference points for the scholarly community as SEL research continues to advance. Below we briefly summarise each paper to whet the reader’s appetite:
Oberle, Domitrovich, Meyers and Weissberg’spaper provides us with a useful starting point. In it, the authors begin by offering the reader a helpful overview of what we mean when we talk about social and emotional learning, defining the key competencies noted above and highlighting the utility of SEL from a range of perspectives (e.g. as an aid to academic learning). They follow this up with a conceptual model for systemic SEL in which the core components theorized to underpin effective school-wide implementation are documented and explored. Recognising that the translation of this model from theory to practice is likely to be a complex and complicated process, Oberle et al subsequently propose a theory of action (ToA) to help schools move towards systemic SEL, noting six key activities that may act as a foundation for doing so. In what is a salient theme throughout this special issue, the authors note that the evidence to support this ToA is emergent rather than well established (indeed, at the time of writing, their formal evaluation is on-going).
Set in the context of early childhood education, Denham et al’s article provides a comprehensive review of considerations in assessing young children’s emotional competence. The authors build their rationale for an increased focus on this aspect of SEL by locating it as a school readiness issue, arguing convincingly that skills of emotional expressiveness, regulation and knowledge are not only key developmental tasks of early childhood, but also important for children’s social relations and pre-academic success in early education settings. Using this as their foundation, Denham et al subsequently demonstrate the potential role of formative and summative assessment of emotional competence in educational systems of practice, before highlighting a range of measures, measurement considerations and key gaps in a field that they summarise as “promising, but far from completely adequate” (p.15).
Providing a bridge between assessment and intervention, Gresham begins with a discussion of the conceptualization of social skills as ‘academic enablers’ and problem behaviours as ‘academic disablers’. Building on this, he outlines key considerations in the assessment of social skills, in particular focusing on practical and technical issues influencing rating scales, before offering an overview of frequently used and well validated measures. In the second half of his paper, Gresham guides the reader through social skills intervention research findings for children and young people with identified difficulties. This helpful summary demonstrates concisely that such interventions can lead to meaningful improvements on a variety of indices of social behaviour.
In his paper, Durlakdiscusses the importance of implementation – the process(es) through which an intervention is put into practice – in assessing the impact of SEL. Guiding us first through the ‘knowns’, he provides a concise primer on implementation and the body of research that highlights its importance. This is followed by a discussion of the available evidence pertaining to numerous key questions and debates in the field (e.g. are adaptations helpful or harmful?). In closing, Durlak charts a course for future research on implementation and SEL by highlighting the ‘unknowns’, noting four key questions that have yet to be adequately answered (e.g. how can effective programmes be sustained over time?). The author’s analysis serves as a salient reminder that in this aspect of SEL – as indeed with the others featured in this special issue – there is still much to be learned.
In their paper, Wigelsworth et al update and expand upon previous meta-analytic research by testing 3 key hypotheses relating to the impact of SEL. First, they ask whether stage of evaluation has a bearing on trial results. The results of this analysis have important implications in terms of managing expectations about the likely impact of SEL interventions when implemented ‘out in the wild’ as opposed to tightly controlled, optimisedexperimental conditions. Second, they examine whether the involvement of the developers of SEL interventions has an influence on evaluation outcomes. Their analysis does not support the ‘developer effect’ found in other areas; this is an important finding in and of itself as it suggests greater confidence can be placed in the veracity of the body of research as a whole. Finally, they examine the effects associated with the implementation of programmes outside of their country of origin. Their findingshave particular relevance in the current context we find ourselves in, where appropriation and cultural adaptation of existing ‘evidence-based’ programmes from elsewhere in the world is becoming more commonplace.
Finally, offering a critical perspective on the position adopted by other authors in the special issue, Ecclestone and Rawdin argue that the rise of SEL in education reflects the emergence of a ‘vulnerability zeitgeist’ and an accompanying unfounded view of children and young people as being in a state of unprecedented crisis. They map out historical roots and contemporary developments in policy in support of their thesis, in particular noting the shift to new types of ‘psy experts’ operating in an increasingly marketised education landscape. The authors revisit previously expressed critiques of SEL as representing a “deeply pessimistic sensibility of psycho-emotional vulnerability” (put more simply, our kids are broke and need to be fixed;Emery, 2016), and offer an alternative framing of approaches to understanding and promotion of wellbeing in educational contexts. Theirs is a welcome addition to the issue that effectively and efficiently troubles numerous ‘assumed truths’ about SEL.
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