An Educology of Social-Emotional Learning

The educology of social-emotional learning (SEL) is the fund of knowledge about SEL programs, processes and products of those processes. Educological research about the SEL programs which various individuals and organizations have developed and implemented over the past 50 years has provided necessary and sufficient evidence of the efficacy of those programs in contributing to the prosocial behavior of students and their academic achievement in government funded and administered school settings in liberal democratic societies (the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand). The evidence indicates that SEL programs do indeed achieve what they are intended to achieve. They result in the improvement upon the social-emotional range of knowing that children and youths otherwise learn before their years in school and outside of school during their school years (from discovery learning as the resultant of inquiry, from coerced learning as the resultant of socialization, enculturation, indoctrination and other coercive processes in their physical, social and cultural environment and from accidental learning as the resultant of happenstance). A well-developed social-emotional range of knowing includes knowing about forming healthy, balanced, personal identities, exercising emotional regulation, setting and achieving personal and collective goals, having and expressing empathy, feeling and showing empathy for others, establishing and maintaining supportive relationships and being responsible and accountable in decisions and actions. Learning intentionally under guidance this range of social-emotional knowing from school-based SEL programs and habitually using this range in out-of-school and in-school situations helps children and youths to develop their patterns of linguistic expression, physical behavior and psychical function such that the patterns are compatible with the social and cultural systems of their schools and their communities. First as infants, then as children and youths, through intentional guided study of a constructive social-emotional range of knowing, they become more effective in playing the role of student, in competently engaging in intentional study activities and in intentionally learning under guidance the prescribed ranges of knowing that are specified by the intended learning outcomes of their school curriculum. View Less