Emotional Literacy in Schools: A Psychosocial Perspective

Abstract

Daniel Goleman’s (1995) American bestseller, Emotional Intelligence — Why It Can Matter More than IQ, popularized the idea of explicitly teaching ‘emotional literacy’, both in the workplace and in schools. Over the decade and a half since the publication of his book, emotional literacy research and teaching has proliferated and is now widespread, being discussed and taught in such apparently culturally diverse settings as India (Kunnanatt, 2004), Malaysia (Liau et al., 2003) and South Africa (Maree and Eiselen, 2004), although it predominates in North America and Europe. In Britain in 2003, the then Department for Education and Skills1 commissioned a research report into the teaching of emotional literacy in British schools. Commenting that ‘the learning of emotional and social competence is, at its heart, about learning to be a warm, caring and empathic human being who can make worthwhile personal relationships with others’ (Weare and Gray, 2003: 56), the ensuing report argued that emotional literacy could and should be explicitly taught in schools. This led in 2005 to the implementation of a National Curriculum for Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL).KeywordsSocial CompetenceEmotional IntelligenceEmotional CompetenceEmotional LifeWalk AwayThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.