Examining Equity in Teachers' Perceptions of Social and Emotional Learning

Both scientific and nonscientific communities have reported the positive effects of social and emotional learning (SEL) on student development. However, little attention has focused on students’ racial identity and culture or paid attention to adult learning about SEL. Transformative SEL (Jagers et al. 2019) prioritizes practices that promote an explicit focus on culture, identity, agency, belonging, and engagement. This qualitative study examined the alignment amongst transformative SEL and how high school teachers of Black students perceived and implemented SEL. Three research questions are addressed. First, how does transformational SEL align with the ways that teachers of Black students perceive SEL? Second, how does transformational SEL align with the ways that teachers of Black students implement SEL? Third, how does the relationship among transformative SEL, teachers’ perceptions and their SEL implementation practices vary by teacher race? Thirteen teachers completed an online self-report survey, shared SEL curricular artifacts, and participated in individual interviews. Content analysis yielded eight themes about teacher perceptions and implementation of SEL: emotional and behavioral regulation for students, complementary to academic instruction, SEL training and resources needed for teachers, leveraging historical examples, using student-centered approaches, elevating student voice, encouraging student reflection, and supporting student racial/ethnic identity development. The results are analyzed and discussed with regard to implications for the role of race in SEL training and classroom practices, especially in high schools.