Political pushback against social-emotional learning is prompting some districts to try a new tactic: call SEL something else.
Sixteen percent of educators said in an EdWeek Research Center survey conducted in March and April that their school or district in the past year has tried to limit controversy by referring to social-emotional learning by another name while continuing to teach the concepts and skills associated with it.
Social-emotional learning is the umbrella term for the constellation of nonacademic skills—such as emotional regulation, empathy, collaboration, and goal setting—that are important for success in school and work.
This isn’t the first time that rebranding has been used in education to avoid pushback over a concept swept up in politics. Several states did exactly that with the Common Core State Standards, making small tweaks to the standards and keeping the curricula they had already invested in while changing the name.
But with the pace at which things can become politicized today, is using different terms for SEL a workable strategy? The answer likely depends on the unique circumstances of every school community.
As a short-term strategy for schools embroiled in heated controversy over their SEL programs, it makes sense, said Rebecca Jacobsen, a professor of education politics and policy at Michigan State University.
“Let’s stay the course, let’s lower the temperature, let’s call it this—that to me sounds like a really good short-term strategy,” she said. “Whether in the long term that works will depend upon whether schools maintain this status of scrutiny. And that is hard to predict because it’s going to come from folks who want to keep stirring the pot, and I don’t know if education is going to be the pot they keep wanting to stir.”
Social-emotional learning by any other name still teaches essential skills
Once seen as a relatively straightforward strategy to boost students’ soft skills and character development, social-emotional learning’s growth in K-12 education had largely gone unchallenged for decades, even experiencing a surge of interest during the pandemic.
But as concepts such as critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion became flashpoints in the political arena, some conservative activists in 2021 started challenging social-emotional learning as well, claiming it was an attempt by educators to indoctrinate students with liberal values or practice psychology on students without a license.
For a superintendent in a school district in Arizona, social-emotional learning is a source of fierce controversy in his community. In response, his district has started using other terms to refer to SEL, while still continuing to teach the skills in classrooms.
The superintendent asked not to be identified in this story to protect his district from backlash related to its support for teaching SEL skills. The pushback in his district comes from a small but highly vocal group of community members, and changing the name has been an effective strategy for dealing with that public criticism, he said.
The superintendent said he has had some parents raise concerns over SEL teaching values they’re not comfortable with, but those parents tend to be persuaded of the benefits of teaching those skills once he can share what, exactly, the district’s SEL program teaches.
The superintendent said he has no intention of doing away with SEL because most parents support it, and he sees the concept as essential for students’ success in school, work, and society.
“Ninety percent of students in the country go to public [schools], so public education is the foundation of our democracy and it’s built on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and if we aren’t being kind to each other, society quickly breaks down,” he said. “I think SEL, that concept of teaching kindness to kids, is what’s going to keep our society together.”
While the pushback to SEL varies greatly from community to community, the ideological opposition to SEL at the national level isn’t letting up. This spring, the U.S. Department of Education released an FAQ document that argues that SEL can be used to discriminate against students, and a prominent conservative activist group, Moms for Liberty, launched a campaign to invigorate parent activism against SEL nationwide.
With all the political pushback SEL continues to face, it’s surprising that more schools and districts aren’t ditching the term, said Jonathan Collins, an assistant professor of political science and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Forty-six percent of teachers, principals, and district leaders said in the EdWeek Research Center survey that they still refer to social-emotional learning by its original name all of the time.
Collins said he thinks using a different name to describe SEL is a useful strategy for an individual teacher or school to deescalate a situation or get conversations focused on the actual substance of SEL, but it may not work as well for an entire school system.
“I think we have to ask ourselves, if education is going to continue to be politicized, at what point do we have to accept the fact that the things that we want to keep as part of our education system, this might be the moment that to keep those things, we have to fight for them” Collins said.
Among survey respondents, those in the South and from suburban areas were more likely to say that their school or district had renamed SEL. One in 5 in those areas said their school or district had tried limiting controversy over SEL by always or sometimes using another term for it. Four percent of all teachers, principals, and district leaders in the survey said their school or district limited controversy to SEL by ending use of the concept altogether.
The term social-emotional learning can be confusing and inaccessible
Even before social-emotional learning became politicized, there were criticisms that the practice or concept was too wonky and inaccessible for parents and other community members. In the EdWeek Research Center survey, 27% of respondents said their schools use other terms to refer to SEL, but not specifically to limit controversy. The most popular alternative terms for SEL are “character education,” followed by “life skills” and “communication skills.”
Genevra Walters was the superintendent for Kankakee School District #111 in Illinois for a decade up until last year. During her tenure as superintendent, she started using terms like “soft skills” and “work skills” to sometimes describe social-emotional learning as she communicated with local business and community leaders. She did not do this due to political pushback, she said, but to talk about the concept in ways that made sense to people outside of K-12 education.
Her district invested in social-emotional learning after hearing from the local business community that students graduating from the district didn’t have the necessary skills and habits to be successful in the workforce, such as taking initiative, arriving on time, and working collaboratively with colleagues.
Walters, who currently serves as the interim superintendent for the Pembroke Community Consolidated School District #259 in Illinois, said she does see the value of revising the name of concepts, programs, and job titles to change the perceptions of the broader community, and it’s a tactic she’s used herself in other situations.
“I think the downside is common language,” she said. “Because of the feelings around different words, we’re not communicating. We think we’re arguing, but we’re actually talking about the same thing.”
Will the politics shift around social-emotional learning?
While pushback to SEL continues to flare up, Collins thinks SEL benefits somewhat from being a concept that’s a little harder to politicize than critical race theory or diversity, equity, and inclusion. There are some key reasons why that might be the case, Collins said.
“My take is that SEL doesn’t operate as the same political bait as DEI and CRT. They seem to summon these preconceived ideas that there are people in America who are getting unfair advantages or receiving benefits that they don’t deserve,” Collins said. “SEL doesn’t have that same undertone.”
SEL may also benefit from the fact that it’s actually been taught in K-12 classrooms for years, he said, and that many teachers find the practice useful in managing their classrooms and helping students learn.
A 2024 survey by the RAND Corp. and the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning, or CASEL, found that the number of principals reporting that their schools use an SEL program or curriculum has increased even as the concept has faced political pushback. The growth was most substantial in secondary schools, according to the survey.
Even so, for some districts, playing whack-a-mole and renaming SEL or any other educational topic that suddenly becomes politicized might just be the new normal, said Jacobsen, the Michigan State University professor.
“Maybe it will just be a constant game of this now where we’re shifting the terms, because every time we have one it gets corrupted by a national narrative that spreads so rapidly through these federated groups or through social media,” she said.
Perhaps by renaming SEL, schools can get back to dealing with the complaints they used to field over SEL: not having enough money, training, or time for teachers to properly integrate it into instruction.
But even if schools can successfully rename social-emotional learning and put the political fights behind them, the larger issue—that of trust in institutions—that have led to this environment will remain, said Jacobsen.
“Unfortunately, it doesn’t get to the heart of what do schools need to be doing to shore up trust,” she said.
