A critical discourse analysis of the New Labour discourse of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) across schools in England and Wales: Conversations with policymakers

Abstract

This paper reports on a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of the New Labour (1997-2010) discourse of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in schools, and how it was understood and enacted by policymakers in England and in Wales within the context of devolved government across the UK. By SEL I mean universal school-based programs, located in the concept of children’s emotional wellbeing and concerned with developing children’s ability to understand, express and manage their emotions. Through a series of in-depth interviews with national level SEL policy actors this investigation worked to understand and identify how the SEL policy discourse worked “to privilege certain ideas and topics and speakers and exclude others” (Ball, 2008, p. 5). Through shining a critical light on the discourse of New Labour SEL policy makers this work responds to the call of Gunter et al. (2014) for critical education researchers to develop and amplify voices which challenge the current hegemonic “common sense” discourse. The findings identify that the relationship between language and political ideology in England and Wales during the New Labour years powerfully shaped the SEL policy discourse.

Assessing Spanish-speaking immigrant parents’ perceptions of climate at a New Language Immersion School: A critical analysis using “Thinking with Theory”

“…This redefinition should consider parents as vehicles of power, enabling them as contributors to change and recognizing their roles in their children's schooling. This research supports a redefinition of parents as contributors, to work against the discursive practices in the policy boardroom, district office, and/or principal's desk that continue to have a common sense (Emery, 2016) or deficit-laden vocabulary (Hernández, 2016) towards underrepresented groups.…”

Understanding the interpretation and implementation of social and emotional learning in physical education

“…However, innovation in education often meets explicit and implicit resistance when it requires changes in practice (Fullan, 2007; Maclean et al ., 2015). Despite research and policy support, such has been the case with SEL (Emery, 2016; Elias, 2019; Shriver & Weissberg, 2020). A lack of qualitative understanding related to the policy process as well as the interpretation and implementation of SEL by teachers has been identified as a major obstacle to promoting SEL in general education (Hamre et al ., 2013; Corcoran et al ., 2018) and in PE (Dyson et al ., 2020).…”

Theorising social and emotional wellbeing in schools: a framework for analysing educational policy

“…Given the somewhat prescriptive account of what constitutes 'appropriate' social and emotional understanding and the consequential motivations that drive behaviour, it is perhaps unsurprising that the SEL and the CME account are restrictive in terms of accommodating deviance or differences in worldviews. Furthermore, key SEL policies such as the New Labour 1 SEAL programme, have been critiqued for targeting key groups of children such as those in poverty (Emery 2016). This argument claims that conditions of structural disadvantage are reframed as failings in the individual's social or emotional development.…”