Sensemaking, Sensegiving, and the Challenges of Making School Changes for Students’ Socioemotional Wellbeing

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Purpose: The COVID pandemic brought heightened attention to students’ socioemotional needs and wellbeing in school, sparking a wide variety of changes from individual teachers’ innovations to district-wide initiatives. This study uses the context of SEL-related changes post-pandemic to explore the ways teachers and leaders engaged in sensemaking and sensegiving in the process of making change. Methods: This study draws on 17 semi-structured interviews with educators in Maine, including 7 classroom teachers and 4 school and district leaders from across the state, and 6 teachers and leaders in a single school. Data analysis involved thematic coding, then code refinement based on the sensegiving literature and through cross-case comparisons across the three groups of participants. Findings: Findings illustrate the puzzles of congruence and coordination in the process of making school changes. Teachers tended to make sense of their SEL changes in ways that privileged congruence with prior beliefs but deemphasized coordination with colleagues. Leaders attempted to engage in purposeful sensegiving to strike a balance—emphasizing both the familiarity and newness of changes, the need to work in unison and the value of professional autonomy. Findings suggest that different frames about SEL, from a developmental logic to a best practice logic, played an important role in how teachers and leaders navigated these puzzles. Implications: This study sheds light on the role of sensegiving in leading change, including the way sensegiving can intervene in teacher sensemaking about congruence and coordination, and the potential implications of relying on different frames.