Inclusive education by teachers to the development of the social and emotional competencies of their students in secondary education

Abstract

Background: Social and emotional competencies are crucial to healthy student development in the educational context. Empirical studies have demonstrated that students’ social and emotional competencies favour achievement performance and positive interpersonal relationships at the school. Students’ social and emotional competencies could be developed at the school through the influence of respectful and supportive contexts. These contexts are mainly generated by teachers at the school through the inclusive education. Aims: This study aimed to analyse the relation between the inclusive education by teachers and the social and emotional competencies of their students in compulsory secondary education. This relation was examined considering three levels (school, classroom and individual). Samples: Participants were 294 teachers (age range 24–64 years, Mage = 43.52, SD = 10.00; 58.8% female) and 3550 of their students (age range 11–16 years, Mage = 12.73, SD = 1.05; 48.4% female), from 40 schools and 174 classrooms of Spanish compulsory secondary education. Methods: This ex-post-facto cross-sectional and multilevel study was conducted with self-report surveys. Results: Many correlations showed a positive relation between inclusive education by teachers and their students’ social and emotional competencies in the three levels. When the school and classroom levels mean scores for inclusive education by teachers were analysed using multilevel regression modelling, the school organization for inclusive education was significantly related to their students’ social and emotional competencies. Conclusions: Inclusive education by teachers could be an effective pedagogical action to develop the students’ social and emotional competencies. Political and school implications are discussed.