“I'm a security professional, a counselor, a leader, and sometimes a father figure”: Transformative social emotional learning through the eyes of school security professionals

Abstract

AbstractSchools are increasingly hiring full‐time, unarmed school security professionals (SSPs), who are different from School Resource Officers (SROs), to help facilitate safe and supportive school climates. However, there is a paucity of literature about how they describe and engage with social emotional learning (SEL), particularly equity‐focused or transformative SEL. The current study is a secondary data analysis using qualitative responses to content embedded in two online professional development (PD) modules created for school security: SEL and cultural competence (CC). Forty‐eight SSPs completed the SEL module and 18 of these SSPs also completed the CC module. Informed by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning's transformative SEL literature, researchers sought to understand how SSPs describe SEL and how they apply transformative SEL in their work. A qualitative transcript analysis was performed, and transformative SEL's five subthemes were identified through this iterative process: working collaboratively, equity and inclusion, cultural humility, ties to identity, and advocacy. Findings demonstrated that SSPs who completed the modules apply transformative SEL principles in various, overlapping ways, illustrating their capacity to support student SEL. However, some SSPs struggled to make ties to their own identity, highlighting the need for widespread training and additional emphasis on self‐awareness in transformative SEL PD.