Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) has been steadily gaining traction in education, but little attention has been paid to its underlying assumptions. In Critiquing Social and Emotional Learning:Psychodynamic and Cultural Perspectives, Clio Stearns draws on qualitative classroom observations, teacher interviews, and analysis of prominent SEL program materials to offer a critique of SEL as a codified phenomenon. Stearns questions undergirding presumptions about children, teachers, and SEL's interplay with cultural and educational trends. Claiming that SEL participates in cultural demands for "hegemonic positivity," Stearns illustrates the dangers and undesirable demands of this impossible curricular regime. In particular, Stearns highlights how closeness and understanding in the classroom are repeatedly circumvented and how normative and necessary parts of life like negative affect and interpersonal conflict are disregarded. In Stearns's view, the educational community should not consider children's social and emotional worlds as fair domain for mastery or learning. Instead, we should consider social and emotional education as something without a predetermined endpoint, requiring the joint and ongoing participation of teachers and students

Consent in the Childhood Classroom challenges typical premises of social and emotional learning, self-regulation, and putative misbehavior by centering the theme of consent in the experiences of young children and their teachers. Early childhood and elementary teachers often face disruptions and acts of dissent from young students, without a helpful conceptual framework for understanding how these expressions may stem from social injustices, developmental nuances, and problematic assumptions about the nature of children's agency. By posing complex yet relatable questions about the presumptions of authority, positivity, and routines in learning environments, and drawing on classroom anecdotes along with interviews with children and teachers, this book offers an accessible approach to cultivating expansive relationships in the classroom, a vision for a richer and more mutual education, and a clearer understanding of what school means from the perspective of the child.

Consent in the Childhood Classroom challenges typical premises of social and emotional learning, self-regulation, and putative misbehavior by centering the theme of consent in the experiences of young children and their teachers. Early childhood and elementary teachers often face disruptions and acts of dissent from young students, without a helpful conceptual framework for understanding how these expressions may stem from social injustices, developmental nuances, and problematic assumptions about the nature of children's agency. By posing complex yet relatable questions about the presumptions of authority, positivity, and routines in learning environments, and drawing on classroom anecdotes along with interviews with children and teachers, this book offers an accessible approach to cultivating expansive relationships in the classroom, a vision for a richer and more mutual education, and a clearer understanding of what school means from the perspective of the child.

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) has been steadily gaining traction in education, but little attention has been paid to its underlying assumptions. In Critiquing Social and Emotional Learning: Psychodynamic and Cultural Perspectives, Clio Stearns draws on qualitative classroom observations, teacher interviews, and analysis of prominent SEL program materials to offer a critique of SEL as a codified phenomenon. Stearns questions undergirding presumptions about children, teachers, and SEL's interplay with cultural and educational trends. Claiming that SEL participates in cultural demands for "hegemonic positivity", Stearns illustrates the dangers and undesirable demands of this impossible curricular regime. In particular, Stearns highlights how closeness and understanding in the classroom is repeatedly circumvented and how normative and necessary parts of life like negative affect and interpersonal conflict are disregarded. In Stearns' view, the educational community needs to stop thinking about SEL and instead consider education, while realizing that it cannot have a predetermined endpoint and requires the joint and ever-present participation of teachers and students.