Be complicit or get out: a qualitative case study on the macrolevel barriers to social emotional learning (SEL)

This study is a qualitative case study of a midwestern educator’s journey to implement authentic social-emotional learning (SEL) in an economically disadvantaged school district, the macrolevel challenges that she faced, and the methods she was able to implement at a private discovery school that she co-founded. After countless attempts to find solutions to the issues that arose, she was left with two choices: become complicit or leave the public schools. This case study uncovers her decision to leave American public schools and unwraps the methods and design that she was able to implement at a private discovery school in the absence of standardized testing. This study provides an awareness of what authentic implementation of SEL entails for public school educators, an understanding of the macrolevel issues that are barriers to authentic SEL implementation and provides implementation ideas for practitioners and researchers who seek to implement and/or study social-emotional learning.