Do Curriculum-Based Social and Emotional Learning Programs in Early Childhood Education and Care Strengthen Teacher Outcomes? A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

There is growing awareness of the benefits of curriculum-based social and emotional learning (SEL) programs in Early Childhood Education and Care settings for children’s social, emotional, and cognitive development. While many SEL programs aim to strengthen teachers’ capacity and capability to foster children’s social and emotional skills, research effort has focused on understanding the impact on child outcomes, with less emphasis on improvement in teaching quality. This systematic literature review examined the effectiveness of universal curriculum-based SEL programs on teacher outcomes. Fifteen studies met inclusion criteria, capturing ten distinct SEL interventions. The findings suggest SEL programs may strengthen teaching quality, particularly the provision of responsive and nurturing teacher-child interactions and effective classroom management. Data were insufficient to ascertain whether participation improved teachers’ knowledge, self-efficacy, or social-emotional wellbeing. The potential pathways between SEL intervention, teaching quality and children’s developmental outcomes are discussed.

The longitudinal relationship of school climate with adolescent social and emotional health

“…These findings are important because they may indicate specific aspects of school climate that might be targeted by future interventions to support adolescent social-emotional health. Many school-based social and emotional programs focus on individual students, attempting to strengthen students' coping strategies, impulse control, mindfulness, empathy and communication skills [22][23][24]. While these individual-level interventions are important, fewer interventions focus on school-level factors that might improve adolescent outcomes, such as factors that support teacher-student relationships and authoritative disciplinary style.…”

Training Early Childhood Teachers to Support Children’s Social and Emotional Learning: A Preliminary Evaluation of Roundies Program

“…In fact, addressing young children with compromised social and emotional skills is one of the challenges most often expressed by early childhood teachers [9]. Therefore, there is growing interest in implementing SEL programs to influence child outcomes by strengthening teachers' capacity and capability to implement SEL practices with fidelity [25].…”

“…It also can equip them with sufficient resources and practices to positively evaluate their abilities to handle classroom situations, perceive children's behavior as less challenging, and improve children's SEL [7]. A recent systematic review suggests that universal curriculum-based SEL programs in ECE settings may strengthen teaching practice and behavior, particularly effective classroom management and responsive and nurturing teacher-child interactions [25]. Despite growing recognition of the importance of young children's social-emotional development, fewer PD opportunities or studies supporting early childhood teachers to serve that role have been reported in Europe [11].…”

Modelo Músico-Emocional aplicado a la diversidad cultural: Identificación y gestión de emociones a través de la música en los centros escolares

“…Las emociones son cada vez más valoradas como herramientas que favorecen un correcto desenvolvimiento en la vida (Bisquerra, 2000;Ortega Navas, 2010), como predictor relevante del rendimiento académico (Mondal y Mondal, 2020), o como factor influyente en el aprendizaje del alumnado en función de las competencias emocionales de los educadores para crear un adecuado clima de aula (Blewitt et al, 2020;Hoffmann, Ivcevic y Brackett, 2018). Al compartir circuitos neuronales, el cerebro emocional con el racional, las emociones funcionan de manera integral con la cognición (Davidson y Begley, 2012), de manera que ambas van unidas de la mano (Salovey y Mayer, 1997).…”