| Summary: | The central motive for conducting this research was to investigate how different countries (Greece, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom) treat social and emotional education (SEE) within pedagogical practice and policy to answer the following questions: How do teachers perceive and practice SEE? And how are government policies and/or programmes about SEE (if any exist) implemented? The study used a sequential QUAN-QUAL analysis with a comparative design, with 750 teachers in an initial quantitative phase participating in a questionnaire, and 22 teachers in the following qualitative phase participating in semi-structured interviews. Cross-cultural differences were found in the research sample regarding teachers’ self-perceived role in socialising emotion: specifically, the teachers’ beliefs about their role in loco parentis, the teachers’ openness to emotional expression in the classroom, and the teachers’ knowledge about the role of emotions and relationships to learning. More variation was found in these three variables internationally compared to intranationally, although demographics were found to statistically influence the results as well. Teacher training regarding SEE was found to have only been made available to a minority of teachers in all four countries. In terms of practice, SEE was more likely to be introduced into schools by teachers themselves (or a partnership between teachers and headteachers) rather than by educational policy. Furthermore, SEE provision was found more likely to be implicit (considered for every subject but not taught as its own subject), rather than explicit (having a dedicated time and curricula devoted to SEE). Recent recommendations by policy influencers to create cross-cultural frameworks of social and emotional competencies and life-skills programmes need to be questioned in light of the findings that SEE manifests in unique ways specific to each culture.
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