Brown Bag Seminar: Learning From Successful Practice: Social Emotional Learning in Three Diverse Urban High Schools

Co-sponsored by the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity

Despite the great promise of social and emotional learning for education practice and policy, it has frequently been called the “missing piece” in today’s accountability-driven education climate (Elias, 2009). Moreover, its absence will continue to fuel gaps in opportunity and achievement for students—in particular, low-income students and students of color—who are “not only left behind but are actively thrown overboard” by large, factory-model, one-size-fits-all high schools (Darling-Hammond, 2006). While current discourse around 21st century skills acknowledges the important role social and emotional learning plays in an equitable education suited to today’s world, more research is needed to understand what its successful practice looks like as well as how schools can effectively implement and sustain it. 

Three open questions in the literature that this study aims to address are: How is effective SEL practiced in high schools? How can or should SEL be tuned to meet the needs of students in diverse socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic schooling contexts? How might a systemic, comprehensive approach to SEL function as a model of school-wide practice? Through in-depth case studies of three urban, socioeconomically and racially diverse small public high schools, a student survey, and a comparison of student survey results to a nationally representative sample of students, researchers investigate the ways in which these highly effective schools design, implement, and practice school-wide SEL as well as how this focus on SEL shapes students’ educational experiences. In particular, the schools researchers study—which serve predominantly urban students of color—ground their educational approach in an expanded vision of SEL that includes social justice education as integral to their practice. 

MarYam Hamedani is associate director of the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University. As a sociocultural psychologist, Hamedani's expertise lies in understanding how culture, race, ethnicity, and social class structure society and shape people's identities, experiences, and opportunities in the world. Her current work as a scholar-practitioner and administrator applies this sociocultural framework to equity and diversity issues in education and social justice issues more broadly. Prior to joining CCSRE, Hamedani was associate director of the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education at the Graduate School of Education.