Making global education goals sustainable, 1990-2018: From reading and mathematics to social-emotional learning

• In Event: What’s love got to do with it? Social and emotional skills in sustaining learning in low-income and post-conflict contexts

Proposal

Traces the changing focus of global education goals from the 1990 Education for All (EFA) Conference to the 2018 World Development Report Learning to Realize Education’s Promise in the discourse of conferences, organizations and their strategies. Over time, comprehensive approaches to education reform have been replaced by more selective ones that draw on lessons learned, putatively, from health. What are the origins of current interest around SEL in education among international development agencies? What factors have accelerated its spread? How does the current interest in SEL compare with earlier education initiatives promoted at the global level? What is the relationship between sustainability and SEL? The approach builds on the work of institutional theorists working at the global and organizational level (Drori, Meyer & Hwang 2006; Bromley & Meyer 2015). This paper specifically extends discourse and organizational analysis begun in two earlier books--Constructing Education for International Development (2003, EFA) and Institutionalizing Health and Education for All (2015, MDGs)--to the Sustainable Development Goals.

Author

• Colette Chabbott, George Washington University