Kan ya ma kan (once upon a time): Opportunities for social-emotional learning in Lebanese picture books

• In Event: Roundtable Session 2
  In Refereed Roundtable Session: Learning Beyond the Classroom: Social-Emotional Development through Families, Culture, and Community Spaces

Proposal

Kan ya ma kan (once upon a time): Opportunities for social-emotional learning in Lebanese picture books

Since 2019, the Lebanese have experienced one crisis after the other. The Lebanese pound crashed in what was described as one of the three worst economic crises in modern history, the COVID pandemic impacted an already reeling economy and healthcare system, and the most recent war in 2024 led to even more destruction and lives lost. Considering the intensified household stress and disrupted daily routines, strong social-emotional skills are critical for young children’s wellbeing in Lebanon.

As a Lebanese researcher who has experienced war in childhood, I write from a firsthand perspective on the urgency and importance of SEL for Lebanese children. Although social-emotional learning (SEL) is increasingly integrated into Lebanese curricula, waiting until children are of school age may miss critical windows to equip them with these foundational skills early on. SEL should commence at home, through everyday parent-child interactions. This study advances a straightforward practical output: parent-facing prompts that transform shared reading into an opportunity for SEL with toddlers and preschoolers.

I begin with a brief overview of the recent Lebanese context to situate the need for this learning. I then conduct a content analysis of 10 picture books recently published from 2020 onward by Lebanese authors. Using an abductive coding framework, I combine literature-driven, etic codes for SEL opportunities in the books (e.g. for labeling emotions, encouraging conflict resolution, promoting perspective taking) with emic codes that emerge from the text and illustrations. A reliability check will be conducted with a second coder. Further, I analyze how caregivers are depicted (and how they model social-emotional skills themselves) in the books.

I end with age-appropriate guidelines for parents on how to leverage dialogic-reading to this end, through prompts that they can draw on whilst reading to their children (e.g. “Is this person happy or sad?” for toddlers versus “What do you think this person is feeling right now?” for preschoolers). I provide brief explanations of the developmental evidence behind these prompts, so that parents understand not only what to ask, but also why it matters.

Through this small-N, practice-oriented study, I translate well-established findings in the literature on SEL and dialogic reading into practical parent-facing tips to ensure treasured reading time is maximized for the benefit of children in Lebanon. In a context with limited resources and persistent stressors, picture books available in local libraries can serve as a feasible, relatively low-cost vehicle for Lebanese parents to nurture social-emotional skills before (and along with) formal instruction.

Author

• Sandra El Hadi, Harvard University