Social Emotional
Cultural Competency

At the NEI, we prioritise social emotional cultural competency for education professionals. Our goal is to create inclusive adult learning environments that celebrate diverse cultures and perspectives.

Developing Adult Social Emotional Cultural Competencies

BUILDING A COLLECTIVE CULTURE OF LIFE WIDE LEARNING

When considering adult social emotional cultural PL for education professionals, the NEI gains relevant insights from the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). They assert that a strong approach to strengthening adult social emotional learning and cultural competencies:

  • Supports staff in reflecting on their own social and emotional competencies, identities, and biases; aid in engaging in practices that affirm and cultivate students’ cultures, values, and identities
  • Provides frequent and scaffolded opportunities for adults to practice, model, and enhance these competencies
  • Professional learning experiences
  • Weaves these competencies through all resources and tools that guide staff in interactions with students, families, and community members

The SECC Framework

The Social Emotional Cultural Competency (SECC) Framework contains the social emotional and cultural domains and their competencies within the infinity symbol. The continuous looping of the symbol represents the ongoing professional learning needed to achieve social emotional cultural competency.

The infinity symbol also signals the intersecting and reciprocal relationship between self and others. The African philosophy of Ubuntu running through the intersecting point of the domains depict their interdependency toward the development of full humanity. The figure embodies the harmony and balance between the social emotional and cultural domains and the competencies needed to produce a Social Emotional Culturally Competent education professional.

SECC Framework
Competencies

Social Emotional Domain

Self-Awareness

Education Professionals show Social Emotional Competence when they:

Social Emotional Domain

Others Awareness

Education Professionals show Social Emotional Competence when they:

Social Emotional Domain

Self-Care

Education Professionals show Social Emotional Competence when they:

Social Emotional Domain

Ethical Scholarship & Practice

Education Professionals show Social Emotional Competence when they:

Ubuntu

Competency

Education Professionals live with actions and attitudes that position their humanity as intertwined with the humanity of others

Ubuntu

Targeted
Outcome

Develop the ability and willingness to accept, affirm, dignity self and to accord full humanity to others (Ukpokodo, 2016)

Ubuntu

Indicators

Education Professional show Ubuntu Competence when they:

Cultural Domain

Equity

Education Professionals show Cultural Competence when they:

Cultural Domain

Relationships

Education Professionals show Cultural Competence when they:

Cultural Domain

Cultural
Confidence

Education Professionals show Cultural Competence when they have:

Social Emotional Cultural School Based Points of Integration

For effective application and meaningful outcomes, education professionals must integrate the SECC competencies into their collegial and teaching experiences. Social Emotional Culturally Competent professionals regard the SECC indicators and outcomes as essential components evidenced throughout the learning environment rather than add – on features.

SEL/CUL Explicit Instruction

Social emotional culturally competent Educational Professionals design interactions and learning experiences that:

SEL/CUL Integration into Academics

Social emotional culturally competent Educational Professionals design interactions and learning experiences that:

Supportive School & Classroom Climates

Social emotional culturally competent Educational Professionals design interactions and learning experiences that:

Supportive Discipline

Social emotional culturally competent Educational Professionals design interactions and learning experiences that:

Adapted from CASEL Equity Insights Report, 2020

Connect Social Emotional Cultural Competency to Classroom Management

The successful integration and implementation of social emotional and cultural competencies involves the development of personal and systemic cultures of positive classroom discipline. Many Bermuda schools, across type, embrace constructivist academic approaches where learners actively make meaning of experiences.

The NEI believes the culture of experiences as learning should extend to the prevention of and responses to misbehaviour. The organisation advocates for constructivist approaches to classroom guidance and views misaligned instructional and behavioural interactions as hindrances for overall student learning. To that end, the NEI looks for specific criteria within the guidance approaches it offers to education professionals.

Whether discipline approaches focus on prevention or intervention, the NEI espouses guidance practices and methodologies that:

  • Are optimizing – promote learning and develop responsible behavior in students
  • Seek ways to prevent misbehavior
  • Clarify long term goals for students to the students and/or help them to define their own
  • Align with constructivists models of learning and acknowledge discipline as a learning opportunity
  • Provide sound intervention strategies
  • Employ restorative and/or restitutional features

To encourage alignment between academic and systems of discipline and guidance, the NEI promotes Charles’ 5 guiding principles education professionals should develop and practice. Education professionals practice healthy approaches to discipline and guidance when they:

Principle 1: Conduct themselves with professionalism

  • Apply standards of professionalism
  • Practise ethical considerations
  • Know Bermuda Law
  • Understand who children are developmentally (individually, culturally)

Principle 2: Clarify desirable behaviour – Immediate and future

Principle 3: Establish and maintain classroom conditions that help students enjoy and profit from their educational experience

Principle 4: Help students to develop responsibility

Principle 5: Intervene supportively and productively when incidents occur: restorative vs punitive

Join the National Educators'
Institute in 3 Simple Steps

Get ready for your journey of professional growth and transformative learning with the NEI. Be open to embracing these three actions to start and to sustain a successful NEI experience. 

step 1

Activate

an active learner mindset. Be ready for learning where you make meaning of knowledge and practice skills with colleagues

step 2

Explore

questions you, as a dynamic educational scholar, can research in your classroom or explore in professional conversations

step 3

Collaborate

with diverse education professionals from all types and levels of schooling. Discover learning and peer coaching partners.

Join the NEI today and embark on a transformative journey that will shape your professional career and positively influence the future of education in Bermuda.