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The aim of this study was to investigate whether school climate and social-emotional learning impact teacher commitment. The sample included 664 public schoolteachers from British Columbia and Ontario in Canada. Participants completed an online questionnaire about teacher commitment, school climate, and social-emotional learning. Binary logistic regression analyses showed that positive school climates significantly predicted three forms of teacher commitment: greater general professional commitment, future professional commitment, and organizational commitment. Of the school climate variables, student relations and collaboration among staff predicted commitment. In addition, stronger beliefs and integration of social-emotional learning predicted two types of teacher commitment: greater general professional commitment and organizational commitment. Of the social-emotional learning variables, the support and promotion of a social-emotional learning culture across the school and comfort with and regular implementation of social-emotional learning in the classroom predicted greater teacher commitment. Implications for practice and research are discussed. (Contains 6 tables and 1 footnote.)
The aims of this study were to investigate whether and how teachers' perceptions of social-emotional learning and climate in their schools influenced three outcome variables--teachers' sense of stress, teaching efficacy, and job satisfaction--and to examine the interrelationships among the three outcome variables. Along with sense of job satisfaction and teaching efficacy, two types of stress (workload and student behavior stress) were examined. The sample included 664 elementary and secondary school teachers from British Columbia and Ontario, Canada. Participants completed an online questionnaire about the teacher outcomes, perceived school climate, and beliefs about social-emotional learning (SEL). Structural equation modeling was used to examine an explanatory model of the variables. Of the 2 SEL beliefs examined, teachers' comfort in implementing SEL had the most powerful impact. Of the 4 school climate factors examined, teachers' perceptions of students' motivation and behavior had the most powerful impact. Both of these variables significantly predicted sense of stress, teaching efficacy, and job satisfaction among the participants. Among the outcome variables, perceived stress related to students' behavior was negatively associated with sense of teaching efficacy. In addition, perceived stress related to workload and sense of teaching efficacy were directly related to sense of job satisfaction. Greater detail about these and other key findings, as well as implications for research and practice, are discussed. (Contains 5 tables and 2 figures.)
This chapter explores three context and education system factors that are implicated in educators’ experiences of stress in the workplace: occupational support, interpersonal relationships, and educational policy changes. More precisely, the first factor concerns occupational support provided to educators to conduct their work with a specific focus on principals’ provision of autonomy support. Autonomy support stems from self-determination theory and refers to the extent to which an authority figure supports individuals’ self-determination in a particular context. The second factor concerns the relational context of teaching with a focus on educators’ relationships with students and colleagues. The third factor concerns the impact of systemic factors in educational policy. For this, we have focused on the impacts of standardized testing and educational innovations. Together, the three overarching factors represent defining features of school and educational systems that shape educators’ work and their experiences of stress in that environment. Overall, our aim is to broaden understanding of the role that schools and educational systems play in educators’ psychological functioning at work.
Relatively little attention has been given to understanding different social and emotional behavior (SEB) profiles among students and their links to important educational outcomes. We applied latent profile analysis to identify SEB profiles among kindergarten students based on five SEBs: cooperative, socially responsible, helpful, anxious, and aggressive-disruptive behavior. In Study 1, we identified SEB profiles among the population of students who attended kindergarten in New South Wales (NSW; Australia's most populous state comprising Australia's largest education jurisdictions), Australia in 2012 (N = 100,776). We also examined whether profile membership was differentially associated with students' socioeducational characteristics (gender, age group, language background, neighborhood socioeconomic status, and learning disability status). Results revealed four different SEB profiles: social-emotional prosocial (SE-Prosocial), SE-Anxious, SE-Aggressive, and SE-Vulnerable groups. Profile membership was associated with the socioeducational characteristics in different ways (e.g., female and older students tended to be in the SE-Prosocial profile). In Study 2, we undertook replication with a different sample of children who attended kindergarten in 2009 in NSW (n = 52,661). We also examined whether the SEB profiles were associated with academic achievement in Grades 3 and 5 using standardized test scores. Results revealed the same four profiles as Study 1 and similarities in how profile membership was associated with the socioeducational characteristics. Moreover, profiles were associated with significantly different levels of achievement in Grades 3 and 5--highest for the SE-Prosocial and lowest for the SE-Vulnerable profiles. Together, the findings have implications for healthy student development and academic intervention.
Social and emotional learning (SEL) involves instructional approaches that endeavour to foster individuals’ social and emotional competence and promote classroom and school cultures that are safe, caring, and encourage participation. Over the past two decades, there has been growing interest in schooling that attends not only to students’ academic development, but also their social and emotional development. SEL has been recognised as one way to achieve this. The current chapter provides an overview of SEL, including important conceptual underpinnings for the area, key definitions of the five well-accepted social and emotional competencies that are promoted in SEL, and positive student and teacher outcomes associated with effective SEL implementation. The chapter also provides important contextual characteristics relevant to SEL implementation and research in Australia and the Asia-Pacific. Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of important research implications for the region, as well as for the world more broadly. In sum, it is hoped that this chapter will help to extend awareness of and effective practice in SEL to best promote social and emotional competence and healthy school and community climates.
This chapter explores the possible relationships between students’ social and emotional competencies, motivation, engagement, and achievement in the context of an autonomy-supportive environment. At the core of students’ social and emotional learning are social and emotional competencies (SECs; e.g., social awareness, relationship skills). The present chapter broadens the view on SECs by considering novel constructs from the psycho-educational literature: basic psychological need satisfaction, adaptability, and academic buoyancy. Importantly, when SECs are effectively taught it leads to positive academic and non-academic outcomes. With the aim of promoting these positive outcomes, researchers have endeavored to better understand the climates that promote students’ SECs. Harnessing perspectives from social and emotional learning, self-determination theory, and the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, we propose an autonomy-supportive environment as one that can promote the SECs. We further contend that by supporting SECs through an autonomy-supportive environment, motivation, engagement, and achievement can be positively influenced. Finally, given the hypothesized relationships, this chapter also briefly reviews avenues for further development of students’ SECs, and more generally, their social and emotional learning.
Social-emotional learning (SEL) involves curriculum that aims to teach students social-emotional competence (SEC) through capacities such as relationship skills and self-management skills. Although the research case for the benefits of SEL is gaining strength, this has overwhelmingly tended to focus on outcomes for students. Very little research has focused on teachers’ outcomes. The aim of this chapter is to consider the relevance of SEC and SEL implementation for teachers. To do this, a conceptual framework based on Jennings and Greenberg’s (Rev Educ Res 79:491-525, 2009) prosocial classroom model is introduced. The framework provides conceptual grounding for links between teachers’ SEC, their experiences of SEL programmes, and outcomes for teachers and students. Next, research on teachers’ SEC is discussed with reference to the impact of teachers’ SEC for teachers’ and students’ outcomes. Following this, the relevance of SEL for teachers is discussed by considering the important roles played by teachers’ beliefs about SEL, along with the impact that SEL programmes can have on teachers. To end, implications for practice, research, and theory that support the promotion of teachers’ SEC and the extension of research on SEL for teachers are discussed.