Emotional literacy and the case for a whole-school approach to promote sustainable educational change (original) (raw)
Related papers
Developing an emotionally literate school
The Bridge: Journal of Educational Research-Informed Practice , 2014
Emotional Literacy involves students being able to recognise their emotions and those of others and respond to these in appropriate ways. This article will first provide an overview of literature which defines emotional literacy before offering some conclusions about what this term actually encompasses. It will then suggest some ways in which schools can foster more emotionally literate cultures. Developing such cultures in schools might involve a whole school approach devoted to emotionally literate behaviour management, enhancing the position of emotional learning within the school timetable, providing opportunities for circle time and considering ways in which emotional literacy might be developed on the playground too through peer mentoring. The article will then evaluate some of the perceived benefits of developing emotional literacy in schools such as improved behaviour, pupil welfare and examination results before offering recommendations for professional practice. Although primarily aimed at primary and elementary school teachers, this article also is relevant for professionals working in secondary schools and those interested in affective education.
Emotional Literacy and the Ecology of School Wellbeing
School connectedness is increasingly identified as significant for enhancing young people's resilience, prosocial behaviour and learning outcomes . Connectedness encompasses how students feel at school, their participation and engagement with learning, and the quality of the relationships they experience . Emotional literacy is defined here as relational values and competencies at individual and whole school levels, and as such is the basis of relational quality and social capital. This paper is based on a qualitative research project exploring processes and practices in six Australian schools. These schools, across ages and sectors, were promoting values of respect, acceptance and care, and actively working to develop emotionally literate learning environments.
The Development of Emotional Programmes in Education Settings during the Last Decade
Children, 2022
Within the psychological domain of emotional intelligence, experimentation on emotional education programmes in school contexts constitutes one of the most compelling research lines in recent years. On this basis, this study presents a review of forty-one programmes implemented in educational settings. The results obtained from the primary and secondary scrutinised sources show the need to integrate families into programme interventions and the importance of teacher training in socio-emotional competencies. Likewise, the importance of interconnecting natural educational settings with research activity is considered a fundamental aspect in designing, implementing, and evaluating such programmes. Thus, the present study aims to represent these programmes’ characteristics, evaluation, and results for the ulterior development of specific and contextualised proposals.
Transformation and Emotional Literacy: The role of school leaders in developing a caring community
2007
Emotional literacy is a values-based concept that incorporates not only individual knowledge and skills but also the processes and practices in an organisation which demonstrate and develop relational values, such as respect, inclusion, compassion and fairness. These values are being promoted in education through the Framework for Values in Australian Schools (Commonwealth of Australia, 2005). This paper summarises research on the intra-and interpersonal capacities of school leaders and the impact of their relational values, skills and leadership style on the ethos of their schools. The author presents findings of a qualitative research project on the development of emotional literacy in Australian schools, specifically exploring the role of the principal in moving forward their vision of a caring community. Findings suggest that an eco-systemic model is useful in the conceptualisation of the bi-directional and interactive factors that create the culture of 'how we think about and relate to each other here' and the affective elements associated with this. Positive discourses of care and community are facilitated where teachers feel included, respected and valued and where leaders model high expectations for intrapersonal and relational behaviour.
A hands-on perspective on integrating emotional literacy in teacher practices
Improving Quality of Vocational Training – Tools, Frameworks and Current Practices, EFQUEL, 2013
ELIA stands for Emotional Literacy (EL) in Action and is a Transfer of Innovation project within the EU Lifelong Learning Programme. ELIA’s objective is to support vocational education and training (VET) teachers to improve communication and interaction with young people, in order to increase their motivation, engage them in learning, and raise achievement. Our emotions play an important role in our ability to communicate with and comprehend others. Emotional literacy approaches can contribute to the creation of a climate for engagement and learning in the VET classroom, recognising the emotional state of the VET students and the teacher and ensuring that emotions are harnessed for learning rather than obstructing it. ELIA focuses on a neglected aspect of emotional literacy in an education context, teachers’ own emotional literacy.
Emotional literacy as a pedagogical product
Continuum, 2004
This paper examines how emotional literacy works as a 'new humanist' knowledge object, with particular emphasis on its capacity to shape pedagogical processes and their outcomes. It does so in three parts. First, it explores the dimensions of emotional literacy as a knowledge object, showing how the take-up of EQ may be understood to represent the triumph of self-stylisation-as-substance. Second, it indicates how it is located in a larger pedagogical agenda focused on human development and change. Finally, it considers the risks of endorsing and adopting this new knowledge object unproblematically into the work of universities and schools.
Emotional Literacy Program (Elp) – How to Improve Learning for Well-Being
2015
This paper describes the Emotional Literacy Program (ELP) of the main project titled: "Promoting changes in learning-School Communities of Learning Gulbenkian XXI". The main purpose of this project is to promote the quality of student's learning and their well-being, reflected through the quality of their school results, and manifests itself through the acquisition of basic knowledge within the formal curriculum and reasoning abilities (analytical reasoning, practical reasoning and creativity), resilience and responsibility. The main focus is the unique and the full potential of each student, a compromise between the basic pillars of knowledge and the fundamental pillars of citizenship in order to improve a culture of well-being. This project are implemented in three basic schools from the Portuguese Educational System, namely the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grade, and it starts with cohorts of students of the 3rd grade. The pilot program start in academic year 2014-2015 and it expires in July 2018, involving seven classes, in three groups of schools; 79 boys and 72 girls (median of age =9 years old). ELP is designed to promote emotion regulation, empathy and responsible decision making, and it is focalized in identification of basics emotions: joy, fear, sadness, surprise, anger, disgust, and explanation of these emotions in a story "The master of his nose", from Álvaro Magalhães.
Expansion Method, 2019
The lack of emotional education has left a huge gap in education and can be acknowledged in a number of emerging problems that could have been avoided. In-school violence and intimidation, the inability to immediately resolve interpersonal problems, the lack of learning how to manage emotions are some of them and the list is getting longer and longer. However, the profits of Emotional Education are also beneficial for improving communication skills and achieving happiness in students' lives as well as later as adults. Emotional Education provides tools that help activate Creativity, Problem-Solving, develop Emotional Intelligence, improve Analytical Critical Thinking. It creates the conditions for Active Learning in a Developmental Mindset, upgrades personal judgment and decision-making abilities with self-taught courses, dramatically improves Interpersonal Communication Skills and Leadership Abilities, helps in the Acceptance of Diversity as well as the upgrading of Cultural Intelligence, and enhances the Seeking and Acceptance of Change. With Emotional Education, citizens of the future will be better prepared for success and happiness in their lives as well as for finding innovative solutions needed to implement the five suggestions presented.
Bullying Reconsidered: Educating for Emotional Literacy
In my new school, I was a goofy fifth grader who was raised by older parents and had little experience with kids my own age. I was the butt of several pranks and was once swiftly knocked to the ground as I walked home from the library. Not only did I wear glasses, but I had somehow thought that redand-white-checkered frames were cheerful. As the victim of endless home perms, I had none of the preteen obsessions with appearance. One day in industrial arts class, the observant shop teacher noticed how cruel his all-girl class was becoming, so he told us that instead of pounding away on our projects we were to sit in silence amid the sawdust. We were given the unlikely assignment to write down our inner thoughts with the understanding that he would read some of them anonymously to the class. Spilling out my total bewilderment about why the other girls made fun of me, I wondered why others saw me as different. After the teacher read some of the papers, including mine, the harassment seemed to diminish-or at least I felt that it did-and more importantly, I learned that inside of my peers were similar insecurities and painful emotions.