Transformative SEL: Building Capacity for Authentic Caregiver-School Partnerships

• In Event: Focus on Families: Understanding Roles, Obstacles, Perspectives, and Best Practices for Caregiver Engagement in Social and Emotional Learning

Abstract

Parent and caregiver engagement is critical to create learning environments that contribute to the overall wellbeing of racially marginalized students. Students of color and those who are economically disenfranchised are adversely affected by unjust educational policies and conditions, and disparities in their academic, social and emotional development are exacerbated when their caregivers are excluded from school decision-making (Durlak et al., 2015; Horsford et. al., 2018). The exclusion of caregivers in students’ education is due to deficit-based views, assumptions of disinterest and disinvestment in their child/teen’s learning, and devaluing of the cultural wealth of families of color by educators (Milner, 2012). Partnerships between schools and families that are affirming of students' identities are beneficial to co-constructing school environments that contribute to their well-being and civic capacity (Mapp & Kuttner, 2013). Well documented benefits of partnerships between educators and caregivers demand more research to understand how caregiver and educator capacity can be increased to collaboratively improve school environments (Mapp & Kuttner, 2013).
CASEL’s SEL Dialogue Series for Caregiver-School Partnerships guides caregivers through understanding their own and their children’s social and emotional development, particularly through the focal constructs of Transformative SEL (tSEL) to recognize their roles as educators and leaders (CASEL, 2023). TSEL is a process whereby young people and adults build strong, respectful, and lasting relationships that facilitate co-learning to critically examine root causes of inequity, and to develop collaborative
solutions that lead to personal, community, and societal well-being (Jagers, et al., 2019). Emphasizing the development of identity, agency, belonging, collaborative problem solving, and curiosity, tSEL empowers caregivers to participate in meaningful decision-making by “increasing their social capital and expertise for ‘collective organizing and mobilization’ for their children” (CASEL, 2023; Skoog-Hoffman et. al, 2023, p. 8).
Golden Eagle Academy, a predominantly Latine and Black midwestern highschool, piloted the dialogue series over two academic years. Data was collected via weekly feedback forms, a pre- and post-assessment, interviews and focus groups with caregiver participants and facilitators. In year one, ten caregivers participated in the series and we found that in supportive conditions caregivers formed a coalition around a shared set of values, aspirations and motivation to participate in informal and formal school leadership. In year two, four of the caregivers from the first pilot year facilitated the series for fifty additional parents in the school community. Preliminary findings indicate that these parents also formed a coalition around a shared set of values; however, their ideas were centered on school safety, healing and improved parent-student relationships.
In this mixed-methods case study we examine if expanded knowledge of tSEL under supportive conditions increased caregivers’ capacity to partner with educators. In this symposium paper, we will contribute knowledge about tSEL as a pathway to, and result of, authentic school-family partnerships. In alignment with the theme of the AERA Convention, we contend that through partnerships rooted in tSEL, educators and caregivers can develop collaborative solutions to challenges affecting students in unjust and inequitable learning environments.

Authors

• Briana Coleman, CASEL

• Alexandra Skoog-Hoffman, NewSchools Venture Fund

• Tyrone Martinez-Black, CASEL