Social emotional learning and the national core arts standards: a cross-disciplinary analysis of policy and practices

Abstract

Arts education advocates sometimes point to extrinsic benefits of arts learning, including Social Emotional Learning (SEL). This study considers if and how the National Core Arts Standards (NCAS) in dance, media arts, music, theater, and visual art may align with SEL standards adopted by the state of Illinois, upon which other SEL standards have been modeled. A team of arts education experts coded 15,500 intersections of arts standards & SEL goals. They found a great deal of indirect alignment between the NCAS and SEL objectives, but direct alignment was rare. As the types and degrees of alignment varied by discipline, broad discussions of “arts education” that assume similar types of SEL happens in similar ways in all arts disciplines are problematic. Given the generally indirect alignment of the NCAS and SEL goals, the authors recommend that educators who wish to pursue both arts learning and SEL goals engage in conscious planning to ensure both types of learning occur. From a theoretical, standards-based perspective it seems unlikely that SEL will automatically take place in arts learning scenarios without deliberate planning. While recognizing the potential for deliberately structured lessons to promote both arts learning and SEL, the authors caution against advocating for arts education programs primarily on the basis of presumed extrinsic benefits such as SEL.