Preparing early educators for the current context of social emotional learning: A content analysis of course descriptions

Abstract

Despite the well-established need for teacher preparation in child guidance and social emotional learning, studies have found a lack of robust course offerings in these areas. Further, the United States context for children’s social emotional development is changing due to the global pandemic, racial unrest, and increased gun violence. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) has put forth updated teacher competencies to address the changing context as well as new research on early learning. However, little is known about how teacher education programs have implemented the updated guidelines around teacher competencies. For this journal article, we systematically examined 314 early childhood education programs of study from U.S. universities. We share a content analysis of 237 course descriptions from courses dedicated to children’s social emotional learning. We found 26% of programs require no course on social emotional learning. We also identifed the four most and three least represented competencies around social emotional learning. Our content analysis reveals that behaviorist theory is predominant in the design of courses and sociocultural influences are under-represented. We provide implications for regularly updating course descriptions to address the needs of children and families in the ever-changing context of education.