Social and Emotional Learning in a Pandemic: Lack of Cultural Relevancy for Bay Area Elementary Students

<p>Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is a pedagogical approach that aims to support the whole student’s academic, social, and emotional growth. CASEL (2020) purports that SEL addresses inequity and empowers youth. While combating inequity is the ideal, the vast majority of SEL programs are not designed in accordance with the teaching practices of Culturally Relevant Teaching (CRT) and Trauma Informed Pedagogy (TIP). Consequently, SEL programs perpetuate inequity for marginalized and minoritized students when lacking cultural and trauma considerations (Boldt, et al., 2020). This study explored if and how teachers differentiate and integrate Social and Emotional Learning, Culturally Relevant Teaching, and Trauma Informed Pedagogy in their teaching to support Latine students' social and emotional needs. Qualitative interviews examined: 1) How do teachers in predominantly Latine, low-income elementary schools bridge existing Social and Emotional Learning programs to meet the unique needs of their Latine students? and 2) How do these adaptations draw from models for Culturally Relevant Teaching and/or Trauma Informed Pedagogy? This research was conducted during the 2020 world-wide pandemic of SARS-CoV-2. Teacher participants are from two elementary school sites in Northern California that serve predominantly Latine students. Most of the study pool of teachers placed SEL aside during the academic year to focus solely on academics. The research revealed that teachers found SEL and CRT to be relevant despite their own lack of SEL implementation, and that teacher knowledge on TIP is severely lacking. The research highlights the need for SEL to be integrated with Culturally Relevant Teaching and Trauma Informed Pedagogy to wholly serve Latine students.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science

Level thesis:degree_level

Master's Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Education

Year dc:date.available

2021

Author dc:creator

• Lopez-Chavez, Patricia

Contributors dc:contributor

• Jennifer Lucko, PhD
• Matthew E. Davis, PhD

• Social and Emotional Learning
• Latine
• Culturally Relevant Teaching
• Trauma Informed Pedagogy
• Pandemic
• Bay Area
• Elementary School
• COVID-19
• Education

Repository record dc:identifier

https://scholar.dominican.edu/education-masters-theses/44

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:scholar.dominican.edu:education-masters-theses-1043