It's Time to Reinvent the Wheel: Examining Cross-Cultural Conceptual Equivalence of Social Emotional Competencies

• In Event: Does Racism Color Black Youths' Social-Emotional Learning? The Roles of Teachers, Identity, and Measurement

Abstract

Previous studies have demonstrated the extent to which instruments, and the constructs they purport to measure, can vary across ethnocultural groups. Participants may differ in their interpretations of certain words, their understanding of the intended meaning of a question, or their conceptualization of an entire scale due to differences in language or in cultural assumptions, all of which can yield inferences of cross-group comparisons that are at best ambiguous, and at worst biased and uninterpretable (Putnick & Bornstein, 2016; Zhou et al., 2019). While rigorous statistical procedures exist for evaluating an instrument’s internal structure and its relations to other constructs, the validity of an instrument’s content across groups remains more difficult to establish (Koller et al., 2017). Yet establishing conceptual equivalence is an important step in determining the extent to which current and future measurement tools are sensitive to cultural and contextual variations. This issue is being met with increased urgency as ongoing demographic shifts have led researchers to question the extent to which current measurement tools are equipped to accurately compare individuals of different ethnicities, those living in different locales, and those exposed to distinct social and/or political forces (Hall et al., 2016). The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to draw attention to the risks associated with assumptions of measurement equivalence, particularly as they pertain to capturing “hard to quantify” social emotional learning (SEL) indicators among Black youth; and second, to consider the utility of prototype analysis in developing a more comprehensive, equity-oriented conceptualization of the five widely recognized SEL competencies put forth by CASEL: self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.

We first describe the challenges of applying self-report instruments, stressing the lack of attention given to tests of invariance, and the subsequent implications on cross-group findings. This is followed by a recommendation for prototype analysis. Prototype analysis is often employed in the examination of multidimensional constructs as it involves “flagging central features rather than identifying critical features” (Kearns & Finchan, 2004, p. 840). In other words, whereas the classical view of concept definition uses a set of criterial attributes, the prototype perspective aims to better understand how individuals outside the research community conceptualize and experience the construct of interest (Rosch, 1975). This typically involves participants freely listing all features they associate with a target construct and then rank-ordering them according to centrality. Thus, prototype analysis is a departure from the more common inductive data-driven and deductive theory-driven approaches that offer complimentary insight in the development of social emotional indicators. Instead, it relies on lay conceptions to inform theory and measurement.

Critically, our recommendation involves engaging Black youth in prototype analysis in order to move towards SEL competency definitions that are sensitive and flexible to the wide-range of culture, power, and privilege inherent in today’s school settings. By including the “missing voice” of Black adolescents at the early stage of conceptualization, researchers are able to gain key insight regarding the extent to which lay definitions correspond to academic conceptualizations of Black youth’s SEL competencies.

Author

• Shereen El Mallah, University of Virginia