The request to provide one’s Acquired Wisdom is a daunting challenge, and others in this series have approached it in a variety of ways. My own is to chronicle how I negotiated a scientific career filled with barriers to overcome and opportunities to contribute to the fields of motivation and self-regulated learning most generally. As you will see, mine was not a straight path but one filled with unexpected events that changed how and what I accomplished along the way. That includes never being satisfied that you know enough. I hope that you find something that helps you on your own journey.
Social and emotional learning (SEL) is an important driver of student well-being, academic achievement, and future success. Despite decades of work on motivation theory and frameworks to promote student motivation and achievement outcomes, connections between motivation and recent frameworks and measures of SEL could be stronger. The purpose of our chapter is to help address this shortcoming. First, we begin by reviewing which theories of motivation currently appear in major SEL frameworks. Second, we introduce how a more comprehensive theory of motivation (based on an expectancy–value–cost framework) could be incorporated into SEL frameworks to advance their overall impact. Third, using examples from our ongoing research in STEM classrooms, we show how a broader knowledge of motivation can inform practitioners on how to promote key SEL competencies and subsequent achievement and engagement for students, especially to address inequities for historically marginalized and minoritized students. Finally, we close with recommendations for future directions for research and practice.
In the past five years, state education agencies (SEAs) have increased the number of social and emotional learning (SEL) policies, oftentimes engaging stakeholders across the state. However, few use multiple sources of stakeholder engagement data to develop and improve their SEL standards and resources (Yoder, Dusenbury, Martinez-Black, & Weissberg, 2020). This chapter describes the experience of a nonprofit research organization supporting an SEA and a volunteer workgroup in Washington state to gather and use several forms of stakeholder input and feedback in developing statewide SEL guidance for K-12 educators. Operating from a research–practice partnership framework (Coburn & Penuel, 2016), the team assisted the workgroup members in applying both an ecological systems theory perspective (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006) and an equity lens to their work through an iterative process of data collection, interpretation, and use. This chapter describes the process and outcomes of this research–practice partnership and provides examples of how the workgroup incorporated stakeholder input and feedback into the development of SEL guidance and resources. We offer insights and lessons learned from these efforts to expand the perspectives represented in SEL research and policymaking. Our aim is to highlight the importance of stakeholder engagement to ensure that SEL guidance considers the priorities and values of diverse communities, especially historically marginalized communities. We hope to encourage more research–practice partnerships to investigate and amplify community perspectives in SEL.
Across the United States, school leaders are realizing the potential for social and emotional learning (SEL) to be used as a critical lever for students' equitable access to full participation in social and civic life. Researchers and practitioners seek to understand how teachers can elevate student voice, increase students' sense of agency, and promote civic engagement through SEL instruction. The School and Community Pathways for Engagement (SCoPE) Project brought together teams from a large, urban school district in the Midwestern United States, the University of Michigan, and the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) in a research-practice partnership (RPP) to examine these pertinent challenges. This chapter demonstrates how the purposeful establishing of and fostering collaborative relationships between researchers and practitioners in the SCoPE Project motivated deeper investment and equity of voice for all stakeholders involved. This chapter specifically discusses the motivational affordances of the RPP approach during participant recruitment, data collection, and data sharing for the SCoPE Project.
As high school and college graduates enter today's highly competitive and diverse, globalized economies, cultural competence and social and emotional learning (SEL) competencies continue being essential skills for college, career, and life success. These capabilities are more than valuable assets, they are employability requirements in a modern workforce dependent on navigating relationships and interactions between people from different backgrounds. In education, educators are increasingly expected to cultivate these skills within equitable learning environments for all students, international and domestic. Recent research demonstrates greater need to support international students in the United States who often experience unique academic barriers, stressors, and lack of support services for managing international relocation and integration into unfamiliar academic and cultural systems. To better understand how culturally responsive SEL education can serve as a lever for increasing equitable conditions for international students and to contribute research-based practices on how distance learning can strengthen culturally responsive SEL skills, the following chapter introduces how one online academic and cultural studies course influenced high school and undergraduate international students. Through qualitative and quantitative sources (e.g., written homework reflections; cultural orientation indicator (COI) report; paper: My Action Plan; course evaluation survey), themes emerged from the data that identified how explicit online SEL education, using a culturally responsive lens, contributed to gains in cultural competence, educational equity, academic and professional development, and self-efficacy.
Latino youth represent more than one quarter of the overall public school population in the United States. For decades, Latinos have been found to perform significantly lower than their peers in standardized academic and some social and emotional measures. A unique subpopulation of this ethnic group, Latino Youth of Immigration (LYOI), has historically been underrepresented in the research literature, specifically, attempting to identify effective interventions that align with their unique social, emotional, and academic needs. In this chapter, we describe the unique sociocultural risk and protective factors for this population. In addition, we provide a brief synthesis of the extant literature on the sociocultural factors that researchers and practitioners need to address in partnership with the LYOI community when developing and implementing preventative programs. We emphasize the unique impact culturally responsive social and emotional learning (SEL) can have in this population. In addition, we provide models and examples on how school-based interventions can be implemented in a transformative manner for this vulnerable population, highlighting implications for researchers and practitioners to better collaborate with the LYOI community.
The need for social and emotional learning (SEL) has never been so clear. The growing understanding of its benefits has been made more evident by the stronger focus of state, district, and school leaders, educators, and families to leverage SEL as a strategy to promote emotional well-being, to combat systemic and interpersonal inequities, and to engage students in positive learning environments. With this urgency to use SEL practices, now is the time to ensure a focus on creating environments and experiences that promote social and emotional development and deepening understanding of the motivational factors that promote student and adult success. Motivation researchers have been studying the motivational elements – and associated interventions – that better equip youth and adults to engage in their learning environments, suggesting the importance that the two fields learn with and from each other. The introductory chapter of the volume, Motivating the SEL Field Forward Through Equity, explores the intersections and accelerators of the two fields to create optimal learning environments and experiences for all youth. Specifically, we provide a high-level overview of the two fields, including ways each field takes into account personal development in relation to context and culture. We further explore ways in which the two fields intersect, elevating the importance of understanding the role of equity and excellence in research and practice. We then focus on one approach that we believe elevates equity of voice in research – research–practice partnerships. Finally, we highlight how this volume is organized.
