Abstract
Culturally responsive social-emotional competencies continue being essential skills for college, career, and life success, especially today, as the world seeks global citizens prepared to respectfully navigate relationships and interactions between people from different nations and ethnicities. These skills are more than valuable assets that a modern economy is dependent on, but skills that students, educators, employees, and society need in order for healthy and sustainable co-existence. In academia, educators are increasingly expected to bridge diverse cultural gaps and foster more equitable, respectful, and safe learning environments, but evidence-based implementation methods are limited. To contribute to the body of literature, this chapter presents three case studies and how each of their approaches can increase essential SEL skills at the high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels in addition to the in-service educator level. The chapter concludes with a discussion around themes that emerged from the three case studies, implications for practice, and recommendations.
TopIntroduction
In today’s globalized and interconnected world, culturally responsive social and emotional competencies are increasingly recognized as core essential skills that help prepare global citizens for equitable twenty-first century education, workforce, civic health, and holistic wellbeing (Cunningham & Villasenor, 2016; Jagers, Rivas-Drake, & Williams, 2019; Jones, Crowley, & Greenberg, 2017; Mahoney, Weissberg, Greenberg, Dusenbury, Jagers, Niemi, Schlinger, et al., 2020). Employers and universities are seeking these skillsets (Fitzgerald & Sigelman, 2018; Maldonado, 2019), that youth and adults can learn to increase college and career readiness through cultural competence and social-emotional learning (Kerr & Gore, 2021; Kerr & Madden-Dent, 2019; Kerr, Madden-Dent, & Shalabi, 2020; Madden-Dent, 2021b).
According to Rose, Leverson, and Smith, (2020), cultural responsiveness from an educators’ lens, is a “process of developing awareness of the significance of our students’ backgrounds (including historical context), then intentionally integrating their customs and values into our curriculum, instruction, and school environment” (p. 1). Once established, this awareness becomes more of a mindset, an approach that respects students’ cultural and linguistic backgrounds while holding them to high expectations for academic success, than a set of best practices (Banks, 1991; Gay, 2018; Hammond, 2015). According to Gay (2018), culturally responsive praxis is validating, multidimensional, empowering, transformative and emancipatory. By centering on the strengths and assets of students, considering the complex dynamics of teaching and learning, and positioning students as co-constructors of knowledge, culturally responsive practitioners create environments where success is accessible to all and learning is liberatory.
At the core of being culturally responsive is a willingness and ability to develop meaningful relationships across cultural difference. Such relationships consider individuals’ holistic well-being as well as cultural norms in mutually defining and enacting care (Jackson, Sealey-Ruiz, & Watson, 2014). These caring relationships require an investment in students that results in knowledge of their families, communities, and heritages and how those influence students’ ecological realities. In other words, culturally responsive practices are the lens through which self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making skills are fostered within equitable education systems.
Social, Emotional, and Academic Development (SEAD) is the integration of social-emotional learning (SEL) and academics that reinforces equitable and human-centered educational environments (Aspen Institute, 2018). The implementation of SEAD practices is aimed to increase SEL, a lifelong process through which all people learn and apply culturally responsive, “knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions” (CASEL, 2020). According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), the five SEL competencies include Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, Relationship Skills, and Responsible Decision-Making skills; all of which are as predictive of academic and career achievement as is IQ (Almlund, Duckworth, Heckman, & Kautz, 2011). The competencies are illustrated and described below.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Cultural Responsiveness: Refers to the process of developing awareness of the significance of our students’ backgrounds (including historical context), then intentionally integrating their customs and values into our curriculum, instruction, and school environment (Rose, Leverson, & Smith, 2020).
Cultural Sensitivity: The degree of an individual’s psychological ability to deal with cultural differences (Medina-López-Portillo, 2004); and to value and respect these cultural differences (Rew, Becker, Cookston, Khosropour, & Martinez, 2003).
Culture: Sets of socially transmitted ways of thinking, feeling, interacting, and communicating through shared value in traditions and customs distinguishing members of one organization from another (Hofstede, 2001, Kluckhohn, 1951; Lustig & Koester, 2003; Wohl, 2012).
Cultural Competence: The multifaceted, evolving capacity to interact and communicate with others having different cultural backgrounds (Balcazar, Suarex-Balcazar, & Taylor-Ritzler, 2009; IHEAC, 2008; Wehling, 2008).
Cultural Awareness: A means toward gradually increasing a person’s power, energy and freedom of choice in a multicultural world (Pederson, 1998) by developing inner senses of the equality of cultures, increasing an understanding of the individual’s orientations, other people’s orientations, and a positive interest in how cultures are similar, interconnected, and differ (Tomlinson, 2001) through “increasing a person’s intentional and purposive decision-making ability by accounting for the many ways that culture influences different perceptions of the same situation” (Altay 2005, p. 171).
Critical Consciousness: The intellectual capacity to think holistically, recognize, and analyze institutionalized constructs for effectiveness and inequalities, and the commitment to take action to improve the system through critical reflection and dialog that promotes social transformation. This complex educational process of learning focuses on achieving an in-depth understanding of the world that in turn allows for the exposure of social and political contradictions. (Modified from Pollard, 2020; Rossatto, 2020).
Social, Emotional, and Academic Development (SEAD): The integration of social-emotional learning (SEL) and academics that reinforces equitable and human-centered educational environments (Aspen Institute, 2019).
Cultural Knowledge: The awareness and sensitivity to existing cultural preferences, values, and behaviors interpreted by an individual that generates cross-cultural competencies aiming to decrease emotional discomfort while increasing respect for other cultures (Hall, 1976; Hofstede, 2001; Pilhofer, 2010; Spradley, 1980; Trompenaars, 1993).
Social-Emotional Learning (SEL): A lifelong process through which all people learn and apply culturally responsive, “knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, make responsible and caring decisions” (CASEL, 2020).