What’s Next For SEL? Composing New “Odes” to More Equitable Futures

• In Event: Love, Empathy, and Justice

Abstract

In this paper, we reimagine the potential of social and emotional learning (SEL) while acknowledging the critiques of SEL for its hegemonic and whiteness-centered regulation of emotions.We are currently creating a podcast series as a pedagogical and methodological approach to critical dialogue on SEL, including topics such as the relationship between SEL and social crisis, neoliberalism, and understandings of the “self.” As we review our conversations and engage in reflexivity, memoing, and thematic analysis, we note two overarching themes: (1) the grappling with SEL as both a transformative force and reinscriber of the status quo and (2) the deconstruction of SEL as a codified term into a more fluid interpretation of fostering social and emotional aspects of humanity. We seek to compose new possibilities for how we can understand the social and emotional worlds within which all beings live and aim to thrive.

Authors

• Jinan ElSabbagh, Oklahoma State University

• Melvin C.-H. Chan, York University

• Emma McMain, Washington State University

• Tonje M Molyneux, University of British Columbia

• Brandon Edwards-Schuth, Washington State University

• Adishi Gupta, University of British Columbia

• Sequoia Dance-Leighton, Washington State University