Culturally Responsive SEL for Black Students
By Tabitha Reynolds Hoang, Research and Policy Analyst
In 2017, I became a second-grade teacher at a charter school with a predominantly Black student population. Our students were intelligent, funny, and eager to learn, but there was a problem. When conflicts and misbehavior occurred, we didn’t have any tools to address issues with students other than “old school” methods, such as sending students out of class. These methods didn’t help my young students, who sometimes struggled with peer conflicts or dealing with “big” emotions.
Eventually, I would learn the name of the tool I wish I had in my classroom: social and emotional learning (SEL). Although SEL seemed like a great concept, I also began to consider whether traditional approaches to it would serve the diverse group of second graders I taught. I learned that other educators and scholars were asking the same question: Shouldn’t SEL also be culturally responsive? I explore this question in my research and aim to understand the intersection between SEL and culturally responsive teaching and the benefits for students.
In our recent report, Miles To Go: The State of Education for Black Students in America, we recommended SEL as a way to support the learning and well-being of Black students. This blog explores culturally responsive SEL as a tool for teaching important social and emotional skills and creating a more inclusive, liberatory classroom experience for Black students.
Why is SEL Needed in Schools?
The development of social and emotional skills is a lifelong developmental process. When students and adults develop strong social and emotional skills, they navigate interpersonal interactions more effectively, form more positive relationships, and are better equipped to regulate their emotions. Because educators recognize schools as a rich and diverse social environment, many schools now explicitly teach SEL through curricula, activities, and school- or district-wide initiatives. Research demonstrates that SEL improves students’ academic outcomes, reduces discipline issues, and creates a more inclusive environment at school. It also lowers stress levels for educators and students alike.
What is Culturally Responsive SEL?
Research indicates that White, middle-class norms underpin many school processes. Because of this, while traditional approaches to SEL have many benefits in schools, they may not be inclusive for all students because they only focus on one way of understanding social and emotional competency, instead of exploring these competencies through a multicultural lens.
For students of color, their understanding of social and emotional competencies may differ from the White, middle-class norms often seen as the standard in schools. Culturally responsive SEL addresses this issue. By merging SEL principles with culturally responsive teaching practices, it shifts away from the idea that SEL is “universal” and “culturally neutral” by recognizing that culture shapes social interactions and emotional expressions, and students’ diverse lived experiences and cultural perspectives are essential for facilitating authentic SEL that benefits all students. Studies show that utilizing a culturally responsive approach to SEL creates a more affirming and inclusive learning environment that validates students’ lived experiences, enabling them to engage deeply with SEL concepts and understand how these concepts relate to their own lives. Culturally responsive SEL also encourages students of color to learn new SEL skills or understand how others interpret emotions and social interactions by using their cultural knowledge as a foundation for learning new perspectives.
Why Does Culturally Responsive SEL Matter for Black Students?
The cultural disconnect in learning environments is especially problematic for Black students. Research shows that Black students face racial bias and higher rates of harsh disciplinary actions in schools when their social interactions and behaviors are deemed “disruptive” based on White, middle-class norms. This results in higher suspension and expulsion rates for Black students.
Because the goal of facilitating culturally responsive SEL with Black students is to recognize the rich knowledge, history, and social-emotional strengths of Black culture as assets when learning social and emotional skills, this approach to SEL pushes back against the idea that Black students lack social and emotional skills. It also challenges the intention of using SEL as a tool to simply make Black students more docile and obedient or further police Black students’ behavior.
What Does Culturally Responsive SEL Look Like in Practice?
Culturally responsive SEL comes in many forms. Here are a few ways educators engage in culturally responsive SEL with Black students:
- Building Culturally Responsive SEL Teacher Practices
- Culturally responsive teaching¹ is central to engaging in culturally responsive SEL. Developing culturally responsive teaching practices can start in teacher preparation programs and continue throughout teachers’ careers. This type of training develops a teacher’s “culturally responsive mindset”. This helps teachers understand the cultural backgrounds of their students, enabling them to find authentic ways to incorporate culture into learning. Attempts to increase curriculum inclusivity are often limited to surface-level cultural markers, such as knowledge of holidays, foods, and languages from students’ cultural backgrounds. However, educators who are skilled in culturally responsive teaching seek to understand how students think about topics like community, family values, concepts of justice, relationships with authority, manners, behavior norms, and rules of conduct, through their cultural lens, and how to incorporate this knowledge into SEL.
- Creating Inclusive SEL Curriculum and Classrooms
- There are many ways to create culturally inclusive SEL experiences for Black students. Many schools rely on SEL curriculum to teach students core social and emotional skills. One way to create a more culturally responsive SEL curriculum for students of color is to use cultural adaptations of existing SEL curricula. To achieve this, educators and researchers intentionally plan ways to shift SEL lessons and activities from a White cultural framing and integrate the culture of students of color. Examples from research include creating an Afrocentric SEL curriculum, using culturally diverse books to create a book club that helps students practice and recognize social and emotional competencies, and incorporating SEL frameworks specifically designed for Black students. Studies have shown that cultural adaptations of the SEL curriculum help students of color develop stronger social-emotional skills.
When facilitating SEL for Black students, teachers may also incorporate practices from Black Liberatory Pedagogy, which focuses on historical teaching and learning traditions pioneered by Black educators to focus on justice, liberation, and excellence in education for Black students by centering the history, knowledge, intelligence, and values of Black people within learning. For example, educators can use these elements of Black culture, such as focusing on positive family and community connections, storytelling and oral history, music, and literature, to teach empathy or explore collective problem-solving to address conflict in the classroom, thus grounding SEL in students’ lived realities. These approaches enable students to build on their existing knowledge while gaining new perspectives.
Conclusion
Culturally responsive SEL can facilitate a more inclusive and representative educational environment for Black students by allowing them to bring their “whole selves” into the process of learning social and emotional skills. These practices benefit all students and support more positive educational outcomes. Furthermore, it is more important than ever to identify ways to educate Black students with an eye towards justice, liberation, and empowerment, and culturally responsive SEL serves as an extremely effective way to reach this goal.
¹See also: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy