Researching Socio-Emotional Learning, Mental Health and Wellbeing: Methodological Issues in Low-Income Contexts

Abstract

This paper explores methodological issues relating to research on children’s socio-emotional learning (SEL), mental health and wellbeing in low- and lower-middle-income countries. In particular, it examines the key considerations and challenges that researchers may face and provides practical guidance for generating reliable and valid data on SEL, mental health and wellbeing in diverse settings and different cultural contexts. In so doing, the paper draws on the experience of recent research undertaken in Ethiopia to illustrate some of the issues and how they were addressed. The present study extends earlier 2018-2019 RISE Ethiopia research, expanding its scope to consider further aspects of SEL, mental health and wellbeing in the particular context of COVID-19. In particular, the research highlights that the pandemic has brought to the fore the importance of assessing learning, and learning loss, beyond academic learning alone.

Building a model of cultural universality with specificity for global early childhood development

“…Perhaps the best known of these studies focused on motor milestones, which fall under UNICEF’s health domain. In this study, 90% of surveyed infants in Ghana, India, Norway, Oman, and the United States followed a universal sequence of sitting, crawling, standing with and without assistance, and walking with and without assistance, with each milestone occurring within a relatively reliable window of 5.4 to 10.0 months (WHO Multicentre Growth Reference Study Group & de Onis, 2006). This study on motor milestones was followed by several other multinational initiatives covering a wider range of ECD skills, including a recent study of 2‐year‐olds in Brazil, India, Italy, Kenya, and the United Kingdom; researchers concluded that “[t]he sequence and timing of attainment of neurodevelopmental milestones and associated behaviours in early childhood are … likely innate and universal, as long as nutritional and health needs are met” (Villar et al, 2019, p. 1).…”