The scholarship on social emotional learning (SEL) has grown exponentially over the last decade. While its beneficial impact on best practices in school is immediately palpable, developing and strengthening buy-in for SEL in schools has, on the other hand, been strenuous in many contexts globally. One reason for this pushback is the lack of clear current theoretical connection, in the eyes of teachers, with existing policies and practices that are already in place in most jurisdictions. In most pre-service teacher training, for example, just as in in-service professional development, SEL sits aside of inclusion as a topic and is presented to stakeholders as entirely distinct. In the field, similarly, SEL integration projects tend to rival projects on inclusion rather than complement them. This creates a struggle for resources which is counter productive. It also creates a degree of confusion in the mind of many teachers, which can lead to disengagement and push-back, when in fact these agenda compliment each other pedagogically with ease. Much of this tension is historical and relates to the way SEL was introduced at a distinct stage, in most jurisdictions, from other inclusive policies. This dichotomous strain is also due to the fact that the stakeholders promoting both agendas often have distinct theoretical backgrounds and professional training. This session will examine solutions to this tension and engage participants on how to optimally conceptualize SEL within existing legislative and pedagogical frameworks for inclusion. The session will first review and analyze the existing tension between inclusion initiatives and efforts to grow SEL in K-12 schools. The second part of the presentation will examine in more detail qualitative data gathered in Canada, among K-12 teachers, that explores these individuals’ perceptions around the place of SEL within best practices for inclusion. The third section of the session will focus on solutions that may help erode or eliminate this tension and will seek to offer participants hands-on strategies that might be useful in their own national contexts.

1. Creating sustainablefoundationsfor the developmentof
socialemotionallearning in a global context–Strategically
and systematicallyembeddingSELwithin the scholarshipon
inclusion
CIMQUSEF'20: Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), a pillar in
strategies for education transformation, Morroco
Dr. Frederic Fovet, Thompson Rivers University
Thursday November 16th, 2023.

2. Introduction and context
• Growing interest in SEL in Canadian
schools over the last decade
• Emerged as a concept distinct from other
initiatives addressing student diversity
(legislative and statutory protection,
human rights lens, anti-discrimination
provisions)
• Relative theoretical weakness in terms of
urgency of this agenda in schools: not
seen as an inherent issue of ‘rights’.
• As long as remains a ‘stand-alone’ trend,
it lacks strength or likelihood to be
enforceable or systematically
implemented.
• Possible ways to address this and give SEL
more credibility in terms of policy?

3. Objectives of the Session
• Examine growth of SEL in the Canadian K-12 landscape
• Acknowledge the relative theoretical fragility of SEL
• Explore the lack of tangible connections between SEL and inclusion from teachers’
perspectives
• Acknowledge the relative weakness of the SEL movement due to this state of affairs
• Explicitly connect SEL to existing scholarship on inclusion
• Integrate SEL into a reflection on Universal Design for Learning
• Examine the implications for pre-service teacher training and in-service professional
development
• Examine the implications for researchers and scholars

4. Personal lens and methodological stance
• Inclusion specialist (both in terms of practice and research portfolio)
• Past career as a lawyer and retain legal lens in my work on inclusion [supports
my examination of legislative and statutory in-school provisions]
• Two lens of experience with teachers:
• MEd courses with mid-career teachers
• Frequent in-service PD as consultants in schools and school boards
• This session examines a phenomenological analysis of data collected through
these professional experiences over the last 6 years

5. Growth of SEL
• There has been growing discussion of SEL in K-12 schools through the Global North
(Corcoran et al., 2018)
• Much of this growth is sporadic, fragmented, and adhoc – very few examples of
systemic adoption across school and school board (Hardy, 2018; Allbright et al.,
2019)
• Rare integration into pre-service teacher training (Schonert-Reichl & Zakrzewski,
2014)
• Infrequent appearance in in-service PD (Prothero, 2022)
• Rare leadership support (Akinnus, 2021)
• Much of the integration reliant on individual teacher initiatives or communities of
practice (Durlak, 2016)

6. Relative theoretical fragility
• Not grounded in the theoretical paradigms that frame inclusive policies in schools
(Human Rights lens, social model of disability, social capital theory, medical model,
etc.)
• Not usually integrated into the theoretical lenses that structure approaches to
challenging behaviour or approaches to significant mental health issue sin school
(bio-medical, psychodynamic, behavioural, etc.)
• Has come out of left field in the educational landscape: more a product of
psychology than pedagogy (Weissberg et al., 2015)
• As a result, usually seen as an ‘add on’ rather than part of the essential training of
educators.
• There are also hazy delineations to SEL and this is counter-productive: Ecological
theory? Counselling psychology? Developmental psychology (Jones et al., 2019)?
Trauma informed care?

7. Lack of tangible connections with
inclusion from teachers’ perspectives
• While teachers feel the urgent relevance of SEL in the current school landscape, they
experience challenges connecting it to existing policy and legislative provisions (Dyson et al.,
2023)
• Promoted from the perspective of psychology, rather than from the perspective of essential
need, constitutional rights, or accessibility to learning (Cipriano & McCarthy, 2023)
• As not perceived as an essential right or a constitutional urgency, it is not prioritized by
educators or by school leadership (Kim, 2023).
• Seen and construed as grounded in psychology and therefore outside the traditional training
and expertise of educators (Román Pérez & Bahamón Muñetón, 2023).
• Good connection of SEL with the field of Emotional and behavioural difficulties, but
challenging behaviour not either seen as protected by inclusive provisions (Caslin, 2021).
• Students with challenging behaviour ironically seen through clinical or pathological lens, or a
‘blame culture’ (Stanforth & Rose, 2018; Visser et al., 2005)

8. Impact: relative weakness of the SEL
movement
• Despite two decades of research and advocacy, still not integrated into the Canadian K-12
landscape
• Disconnect between theory and practice (Ansari & Rizvi, 2023)
• Current challenges in a disrupted geo-political landscape (Kingkade & Hixenbaugh, 2021)
• Mistaken as belonging to other theoretical traditions, often more radical (critical pedagogy,
critical race theory, Queer Studies)
• Lack of clear and specific tools and strategies
• Often reduced to basic sessions on mindfulness (Miller et al., 2023)
• Often misunderstood by teachers, particularly in the context of EBD, trauma, or challenging
behaviour.
• Concerns over measurability of outcomes – Always challenging in a natural landscape where
many variables come into play (Dowling & Barry, 2020)
•

9. Addressing the issue: Explicitly connecting SEL to
existing scholarship on inclusion
• How do these two lenses and approaches overlap and connect?
• Inclusion is changing fast as a construct and legal paradigm
• No longer about impairment and disability
• Now includes culture, sexual identity and gender, ethnicity, mental health, and
neuro-diversity
• Increasingly too students with EBD are seen through the lens of inclusive legislation:
equal access to support, differentiated instructions, availability of specialized
services.
• SEL can now be seen as an appropriate intervention for inclusion for learners who
would otherwise be discriminated against and not have equal access to educational
opportunities (Kim, 2023).

10. Integrating SEL into a reflection on UDL
• More specifically, it is possible to establish explicit, clear, and intuitive connections
between SEL and Universal Design for Learning
• UDL is a framework for inclusion which moves away from deficit model thinking or
bio-medical model practices, and adheres instead to the Social Model of Disability
(Fovet, 2014)
• Exceptionality and diversity are accepted as a given; it is then the role of the
educator to design inclusively with flexibility
• UDL includes three principles of design: (i) multiple means of representation
(flexibility in the way we offer information to the learner), (ii) multiple means of
action and expression (flexibility in the way the learner produces content and
responds to instruction), and (iii) multiple means of engagement (flexibility in the
way expectations for engagement are formulated and defined) (Rao & Meo, 2016).
• SEL often overlaps perfectly with a UDL reflection that focuses on multiple means of
action and expression and multiple means of engagement (State Support 6, 2023).

11. Implicationfor pre-serviceteachertraining and in-service
professionaldevelopment
• It will be challenging to achieve change and ground SEL firmly within inclusive school
policy until pre-service teacher training catches up (Fleming et al., 2004)
• This is more challenging than appears: not just a matter of adding content to pre-
service teacher training curriculum
• In a highly neo-liberal landscape, pre-service teacher training is being shortened and
made more intense (Rigas & Kuchapski, 2018).
• Much content is being abandoned as not ‘essential’ within this business model
approach
• Assumption is often that teachers can access this content later through graduate
education at mid-career point.
• Reality is that very few MEd programs offer content on SEL (Lee, 2019)

12. Implications for researchers and scholars
• There is currently a need to erode the silo mentality which fragments SEL
literature and research away from other key teaching and learning
scholarships.
• Interdisciplinary and cross-sector research becomes essential (Meyers et al.,
2015)
• Need to cross-pollinate the terminology of SEL with other that of other
scholarship
• Need to build bridges between scholarship on inclusion and scholarship on
SEL
• Need for an explicit mapping of connections and overlap between the two
(Breaux, 2023)

13. Questions

14. References & Resources
• Akinnusi, M. (2021) Understanding Principals' Perceptions of Leadership for Implementation of Social-
Emotional Learning (SEL) Programs. PhD Thesis. Walden University.
https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11744&context=dissertations
• Allbright, T.N., Marsh, J.A., Kennedy, K.E., Hough, H.J., & McKibben, S. (2019) Social-emotional learning
practices: insights from outlier schools. Journal of Research in Innovative Teaching & Learning, 12(1), 35-52.
https://doi.org/10.1108/JRIT-02-2019-0020
• Ansari, A. N., & Rizvi, N. F. (2023). School-based interventions promoting social capabilities among students: A
scoping review of literature. Review of Education, 11, e3404. https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.3404
• Breaux, D. (2023). Why Teachers Feel Unprepared to Address the Social and Emotional Needs of Students with
Dyslexia. Tapestry: Journal of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging in Education,
1(1).https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/deie/vol1/iss1/3
• Caslin, M. (2021). ‘They have just given up on me’ How pupils labelled with social, emotional and behavioural
difficulties (SEBD) experience the process of exclusion from school. Support for Learning, 36, 116-132.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9604.12341
• Cipriano,C., & McCarthy, M. (2023) Towards an inclusive social and emotional learning. Social and Emotional
Learning: Research, Practice, and Policy, 2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sel.2023.100008.
• Corcoran, R. P., Cheung, A. C. K., Kim, E., & Xie, C. (2018). Effective universal school-based social and
emotional learning programs for improving academic achievement: a systematic review and meta-analysis of
50 years of research. Educational Research Review, 25, 56–72. doi: 10.1016/j.edurev.2017.12.001

15. References & Resources (contd.)
• Dowling, K., & Barry, M. M. (2020). Evaluating the Implementation Quality of a Social and Emotional
Learning Program: A Mixed Methods Approach. International journal of environmental research and
public health, 17(9), 3249. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17093249
• Durlak, J. A. (2016). Programme implementation in social and emotional learning: basic issues and
research findings. Cambridge Journal of Education, 46, 333–345. doi: 10.1080/0305764X.2016.1142504
• Dyson, B., Shen, Y., Howley, D., & Baek, S. (2023) Social emotional learning matters: Interpreting
educators’ perspectives at a high-needs rural elementary school. Frontiers in Education, 8.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2023.1100667
• Fleming, J., & Bay, M. (2004). Social and emotional learning in teacher preparation standards. In: J. E.
Zins, R. P. Weissberg, M. C. Wang, and H. J. Walberg (Eds.) Building school success through social and
emotional learning: implications for practice and research. Teachers College Press, 94–110.
• Fovet, F. (2014) Social model as catalyst for innovation in design and pedagogical change. Widening
Participation through Curriculum Open University 2014 Conference Proceedings, 135-139
• Hardy, S. (2018) The Role of Leadership in Social emotional Learning Implementation: Making Sense of
Social-emotional Learning Initiatives. Boston College, EdD Thesis.
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/199470359.pdf
• Jones, S. M., McGarrah, M. W., & Kahn, J. (2019). Social and emotional learning: a principled science of
human development in context. Educational Psychology, 54, 129–143. doi:
10.1080/00461520.2019.1625776
• Kim, R. (2023). Under the law: A case for social and emotional learning. Phi Delta Kappan, 105(3), 62-
63. https://doi.org/10.1177/00317217231212016

16. References & Resources (contd.)
• Kingkade, T., & Hixenbaugh, M. (2021, May 15) Parents protesting 'critical race theory' identify
another target: Mental health programs. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-
news/parents-protesting-critical-race-theory-identify-new-target-mental-hea-rcna4991
• Lee, L. (2019, November 26) Lacking Training, Teachers Develop Their Own SEL Solutions.
Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/lacking-training-teachers-develop-their-own-sel-
solutions/
• Meyers, A. B., Tobin, R. M., Huber, B. J., Conway, D. E., and Shelvin, K. H. (2015). Interdisciplinary
collaboration supporting social-emotional learning in rural school systems. Journal of Educational
and Psychological Consultancy, 25, 109–128. doi: 10.1080/10474412.2014.929956
• Miller, E., Crane, C., Medlicott, E., Robson, J., & Taylor, L. (2023) Non-Positive Experiences
Encountered by Pupils During Participation in a Mindfulness-Informed School-Based Intervention.
School Mental Health, 15, 851–872. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12310-023-09591-0
• Prothero, A. (2022, January 8) Irrelevant, Too Conceptual, Boring: Social-Emotional Learning PD
Often Falls Flat. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/leadership/irrelevant-too-conceptual-
boring-social-emotional-learning-pd-often-falls-flat/2022/12
• Rao, K., & Meo, G. (2016). Using Universal Design for Learning to Design Standards-Based Lessons.
SAGE Open, 6(4). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244016680688
• Román Pérez, B., & Bahamón Muñetón, M.J. (2023) The socio-emotional dimension in education:
A systematic review. Issues in Educational Research, 33(1), 307-326.
https://www.iier.org.au/iier33/roman-perez.pdf

17. References & Resources (contd.)
• Rigas, B., & Kuchapski, R. (2018) Educating Preservice Teachers in a Neoliberal Era:
Specialized Technicians or Public Intellectuals? Alberta Journal of Educational Research, 64(4),
393-410. https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/ajer/article/view/56361/pdf
• Schonert-Reichl, K., & Zakrzewski, V. (2014, January 8) How to Close the Social-Emotional Gap
in Teacher Training. Greater Good Magazine.
https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_close_the_social_emotional_gap_in_
teacher_training
• Stanforth, A. & Rose, J. (2018) ‘You kind of don’t want them in the room’: tensions in the
discourse of inclusion and exclusion for students displaying challenging behaviour in an
English secondary school. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 24, 1253–1267.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2018.1516821
• State Support 6 (2023) UDL and Social Emotional Learning (SEL). Ohio Department of
Education. https://www.sst6.org/UDLandSocialEmotionalLearningSEL.aspx
• Visser, J., Daniels, H., & Macnab, N. (2005) Missing. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties,
10(1), 43-54. DOI: 10.1080/1363275205050884
• Weissberg, R. P., Durlak, J. A., Domitrovich, C. E., & Gullotta, T. P. (eds) (2015). Social and
emotional learning: past, present, and future. In: Handbook of social and emotional learning:
Research and practice, The Guilford Press, 3–19.

18. Contact details
• Frederic Fovet (PhD.)
• Assistant Professor, School of Education, Thompson Rivers University
• ffovet@tru.ca
• UDL and Inclusion Consultant
• Implementudl@gmail.com
• @Ffovet
• www.implementudl.com