Integrating Culturally Relevant Pedagogy With Teacher Social and Emotional Competencies and Capacities Training to Support Racially Minoritized Students

• In Event: Motivating the Social and Emotional Learning Field Forward Through Equity

Abstract

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is critical for students’ social and academic success. Students’ SEL is often contingent on their teachers’ social and emotional competencies and capacities (SECC; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Jennings et al, 2021) and teacher preparation to facilitate SEL in classrooms (Schonert-Reichl et al., 2017). Concerningly, teacher training to facilitate SEL is frequently predicated on a color-evasive perspective that ignores the ways structural racism impacts the schooling experiences of racially minoritized students and associated academic and SEL outcomes (Jagers et al., 2018; Jagers et al., 2019). In order to support SEL for students from racially minoritized communities, teachers’ social and emotional competencies and capacities must incorporate a culturally responsive pedagogical approach that explicitly acknowledges and addresses issues of race and justice (Jagers et al., 2019; Ladson-Billings, 2014; Ladson-Billings & Tate, 1995). Culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) is an approach to education that engages students with academically rigorous curriculum while simultaneously affirming their racial identities, and cultural backgrounds and experiences (Ladson-Billings, 1995; 2014). CRP is rooted in: 1) academic achievement – teachers must hold high academic expectations of students and facilitate intellectual growth; 2) cultural competence – teachers must integrate student culture into learning, intentionally create opportunities for students to learn about their culture and others, and interrogate their own identity and culture to strengthen their instructional practice; and 3) sociopolitical consciousness – teachers must actively seek to understand systems of oppression in their local and distal communities and engage students in learning about and challenging systems of oppression (Ladson-Billings, 2006). There are five principles of CRP in the classroom: Identity and Achievement; Equity and Excellence; Developmental Appropriateness; Teaching the Whole Child; and Student-Teacher Relationship (Brown-Jeffy & Cooper, 2011). Our session discusses ways teachers must embed these five CRP principles within their own SECC to integrate CRP with student SEL.

Authors

• Kamilah B. Legette, University of Denver

• Elan Hope, North Carolina State University

• Charity Brown Griffin, Winston-Salem State University

• Johari Harris, Kennesaw State University