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Teachers’ Social Emotional Learning Competencies and Social Justice Teaching Beliefs and Associations with Children’s Prosocial Behavior and Community Engagement

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Abstract

Background

Individual and collective prosocial competence can be fostered through high-quality interactions with program staff in out-of-school time environments.

Objective

We explored whether the social-emotional competencies of teachers working in an out-of-school STEM program infused with social emotional learning content were associated with school children’s prosocial behavior, community engagement, and peer problems and whether these associations were moderated by social justice teaching beliefs and child gender.

Method

Participants were 126 students (72 male). Forty-one were White, 40 were Black, 34 were Latine, and 11 were Asian and most of them were third graders (Mage = 8.11 years). Teachers rated their emotional competence, commitment to social emotional learning, and social justice teaching beliefs. They also provided ratings of children’s prosocial behavior and peer problems. Students provided ratings of their community engagement.

Results

Teachers’ emotional competence was negatively associated with prosocial behavior, but only when their social justice teaching beliefs were low. However, teachers’ commitment to social emotional learning was positively related to prosocial behavior. Teachers’ emotional competence was associated positively with peer problems, but only for girls, and was also related positively to community engagement.

Conclusions

Results demonstrate associations between STEM teachers’ social emotional learning competencies and social justice teaching beliefs in the development of students’ prosocial competence and community engagement and provide directions for future research.

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  1. School of Integrative Studies and Program in Human Development and Family Science, George Mason University, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA, 22030, USA

    Pamela W. Garner

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA

    Kamilah B. Legette

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Garner, P.W., Legette, K.B. Teachers’ Social Emotional Learning Competencies and Social Justice Teaching Beliefs and Associations with Children’s Prosocial Behavior and Community Engagement. Child Youth Care Forum (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-023-09784-3

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