Critiquing Social and Emotional Learning

Critiquing Social and Emotional Learning offers a systematic cultural analysis of social and emotional learning (SEL) as a codified phenomenon in education, critiquing the messages of SEL and the impact they have on teachers and children. Clio Stearns argues for more allowance of negative affect and complex emotional existence in the classroom.

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Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) has been steadily gaining traction in education, but little attention has been paid to its underlying assumptions. In Critiquing Social and Emotional Learning: Psychodynamic and Cultural Perspectives, Clio Stearns draws on qualitative classroom observations, teacher interviews, and analysis of prominent SEL program materials to offer a critique of SEL as a codified phenomenon. Stearns questions undergirding presumptions
about children, teachers, and SEL’s interplay with cultural and educational trends. Claiming that SEL participates in cultural demands for “hegemonic positivity”, Stearns illustrates the dangers and undesirable demands of this impossible curricular regime. In particular, Stearns highlights how closeness and understanding in the classroom is repeatedly circumvented and how normative and necessary parts of life like negative affect and interpersonal conflict are disregarded. In Stearns’ view, the educational community needs to stop thinking about SEL and instead consider education, while realizing that it cannot have a predetermined endpoint and requires the joint and ever-present participation of teachers and students.