Transformative Social Emotional Learning in Secondary Schools

Social emotional learning continues to be an important part of K-12 students’ educational experiences given its connection to a range of positive outcomes. More recently, scholarship and practice has pointed to the need to center equity in our understanding and implementation of SEL in schools due to the ways structural processes (e.g. racism, sexism) intersect with the development of students’ social emotional competencies. Centering societal processes in SEL is particularly meaningful for secondary school students (6th-12 grade) given their increased awareness and understanding of social inequity and how that knowledge informs their burgeoning socially-mediated identities (e.g. racial-ethnic identity) and associated behaviors. Yet, there is a striking lack of research on SEL in secondary school contexts in comparison to primary schools. Moreover, we still need a deeper understanding of how the science of adolescence informs SEL for secondary students. Therefore, this special issue will deepen our knowledge in the aforementioned areas.

There is a pressing need for culturally responsive approaches to social-emotional learning (SEL) for secondary students, as developmental science underscores its critical influence on adolescents’ academic and behavioral outcomes. Within an equity-centered SEL framework, it is equally important to examine how teachers, school practices, and policies, including school culture and curriculum, shape opportunities for students’ social-emotional development. By advancing research that engages these issues, we aim to promote transformative frameworks and practices that cultivate more humanizing and affirming learning environments for both secondary students and their teachers. We welcome submissions covering the following themes:

● Developing educators (teachers, principals) equity-focused SEL capacities

● Integration of equity-focused SEL into content-level curriculum (e.g. math, science, reading, history)

● Transdisciplinary approaches to SEL in secondary schools

● Humanizing approaches to SEL in secondary schools

● Developmentally appropriate approaches (grounded in the science of adolescence) to SEL in secondary schools

● Barriers and possible solutions for doing equity focused SEL in secondary schools

● Systems-levels approaches to SEL in secondary schools

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Conceptual Analysis
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Original Research
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Conceptual Analysis
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Systematic Review

Keywords: developmental science, social-emotional learning, schools, teachers

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.