Search

This chapter aims to describe the process of developing a learning programme foster‐ ing social and emotional competencies together with diversity awareness (SEDA) for teachers and other school staff in the HAND in HAND: Empowering Teachers Across Europe to Deal with Social, Emotional and Diversity-Related Career Challenges project (“HAND:ET”). Teachers across Europe face an increasing workload and are experienc‐ ing high levels of work-related stress. Structural and societal changes like digitali‐ sation and human social mobility together with new administrative tasks are con‐ sidered as contributing factors. Teachers express that they have not been empowered to deal with the new era of diverse classrooms or to handle their heavier workloads. The HAND:ET programme seeks to introduce theory and exercises to empower Euro‐ pean teachers. The theoretical framework for the programme is based on the CASEL framework combined with relational competence, theory on stress, and the concepts of mindfulness and diversity awareness. In the chapter, the theories are presented along with how they are operationalised in practice through the HAND:ET programme. The main conclusion drawn is that empathic curiosity has become crucial for developing teachers’ SEDA competencies within the programme.

The present paper focuses on social and emotional learning, and highlights empirical findings on its importance for teachers, students and schools. The importance of social and emotional learning in school settings has been a central focus of research for the last 30 years. The development of teachers’ social and emotional competencies has been an essential factor for improving social and emotional learning of students. Only when teachers are able to create a school climate in which students feel included and welcome, students can develop and enhance their social and emotional competencies. In this paper, we outline the main conceptual frameworks on social and emotional learning, emphasizing the CASEL framework, relevant for both young people and adults. We proceed by focusing on teachers’ social and emotional competencies, as teachers are one of the key figures for fostering and developing social and emotional competencies in school settings. Afterwards, we address the issue of development of teachers’ social and emotional competencies in various settings. The last part of the paper links teachers’ and students’ social and emotional competencies. We stress the importance of teachers’ social and emotional competencies for healthy teacher-student relationships, and students’ well-being and academic achievement. As teachers also need support for the development of these competencies, we advocate for comprehensive school-wide approach, in order to ensure the successful implementation of social and emotional learning in classrooms., Ovaj se rad usredotočuje na socijalno i emocionalno učenje i ističe empirijske nalaze o njegovoj važnosti za učitelje, učenike i škole. Važnost socijalnog i emocionalnog učenja u školskim okruženjima središnji je fokus istraživanja tijekom posljednjih 30 godina. Razvoj socijalnih i emocionalnih kompetencija učitelja bio je bitan čimbenik za poboljšanje socijalnog i emocionalnog učenja učenika. Samo kada su učitelji sposobni stvoriti školsku klimu u kojoj se učenici osjećaju uključenima i dobrodošlima, učenici mogu razvijati i unaprijediti svoje socijalne i emocionalne kompetencije. U ovom radu iznosimo glavne konceptualne okvire o socijalnom i emocionalnom učenju, s naglaskom na CASEL okvir, relevantan i za mlade i za odrasle. Nastavljamo usmjeravajući se na socijalne i emocionalne kompetencije učitelja, budući da su učitelji jedni od ključnih figura za poticanje i razvoj socijalnih i emocionalnih kompetencija u školskom okruženju. Zatim se bavimo pitanjem razvoja socijalnih i emocionalnih kompetencija učitelja u različitim okruženjima. Posljednji dio rada povezuje socijalne i emocionalne kompetencije učitelja i učenika. Naglašavamo važnost socijalnih i emocionalnih kompetencija učitelja za zdrave odnose učitelja i učenika te za dobrobit i akademska postignuća učenika. Budući da i učitelji trebaju podršku za razvoj ovih kompetencija, zalažemo se za sveobuhvatan pristup na razini cijele škole kako bismo osigurali uspješnu implementaciju socijalnog i emocionalnog učenja u razredima.

The present paper focuses on teacher’s role in social justice and explores how teachers perceive and react upon diversity and inequality in their classrooms. Through a literature review, we aimed to answer three research questions: 1) what are diversity awareness and critical consciousness in education; 2) why are diversity awareness and critical consciousness important; and 3) how can diversity awareness and critical consciousness be supported in teachers. The literature review has revealed that most papers on teachers’ diversity awareness and critical consciousness have been published within the last few years and that the importance of the two concepts has been recognized for a wide range of educators. There seems to be a growing interest in this topic due to the increase of the diversity in classrooms and the recognition of the teachers’ role in addressing diversity and inequality. However, large-scale studies would be a needed contribution to the field, as most of the existing studies are small-scale. Based on this review, we argue that both diversity awareness and critical consciousness need to be supported through preservice and in-service teacher professional development programs, if we are to make education systems more inclusive for all., Artikeln finns publicerad både på kroatiska och engelska, länkar till båda versionerna finns i denna post.The article is published in both Croatian and English, links to both versions can be found in this record.

Over the last few decades, there has been a significant rise in the number of programmes aimed at developing students’ social, emotional and intercultural competencies. This has coincided with growing recognition of the role that schools have to play in fostering not only the cognitive, but also the social and emotional development of their students. Despite targeting separate competencies, there seem to be many similarities in approaches to students’ social and emotional learning (SEL) as well as developing intercultural skills, presenting a rationale for their integration and conceptualisation on the social, emotional and intercultural (SEI) level. The myriad of different SEI programmes provides an arsenal of useful tools for school-based SEI learning. However, choosing which programme to use, considering how to implement it and determining whether it will be effective can be quite overwhelming. Existing approaches aimed at teaching SEI competencies vary greatly depending on the programme, as does the content of the programme and its design. In this paper, we seek to tackle the question of how SEI competencies are taught, with particular emphasis on the content and theoretical or conceptual background of existing interventions, together with their methodological and organisational aspects. We also explore whether and how the evaluation of existing programmes has been conducted, the most important results and the aspects of implementation which are key to fostering the development of SEI competencies in educational contexts. This paper presents an overview of relevant aspects worth acknowledging while developing and implementing SEI programmes, and which might prove especially useful when programmes are conceptualised within the overall SEI (instead of the more often used SEL) learning framework. Given the importance of SEI competencies for the overall well-being of students (and hence their parents and school staff), we encourage researchers and practitioners to b