Date of Award

Fall 2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Committee Chair

Jennifer Putnam

Abstract

Social-emotional learning (SEL) builds students’ resilience skills, which impact the biology of the brain connected to emotional regulation, safe behaviors, and positive learning outcomes. Diminished resilience is typically the result of childhood trauma, which affects physical and emotional health into adulthood. Teachers’ capacity, implementation, and data analysis practices for SEL are important to support building resilience skills in our students to help them grow to be emotionally and physically healthy citizens. The purpose of this research study was to investigate the perspectives of elementary school teachers from four elementary schools in the same school district in rural, southwestern North Carolina regarding SEL instruction. This qualitative-dominant study analyzed questionnaire and interview data through the lens of the CASEL Framework of Systemic SEL and the SEL Continuous Improvement Cycle. Analysis revealed that teachers in this study give time, attention, and effort to teaching resilience skills to their students, especially when supported by their peers and school leaders. Findings led to recommendations for promoting and sustaining SEL through ongoing professional development with a focus on using data to inform decision-making and more intentional instruction for differences between resilience skills and behavior outcomes.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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