1. The New Labour discourse of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) as a universal intervention across schools in England and Wales: a critical discourse analysis.
Carl Emery
Manchester Institute of Education. PhD Researcher

2. Background Emotional Intelligence Advocate
England Practitioner Manchester LEA Social inclusion
Policy Actor SEBS/SEAL/PEARL QCA, DFES
Wales Demonstrating Success, WAG
PHD, Critical Researcher
Background

3. What is this thesis?
This thesis is concerned with critically exploring the New Labour ( ) discourse of Social and Emotional Learning or SEL (Greenberg et al., 2003) in schools, and how it was understood and enacted by policy makers in England; and in Wales within the context of (limited) devolved government. By SEL I mean universal school-based programmes, located in the concept of children’s emotional wellbeing (Watson et al., 2012), and concerned with developing children’s ability to understand, express and manage their emotions, (Weare and Gray, 2003).

4. Key subjects of this thesis
Social and Emotional Learning
New Labour in England and Wales
Devolution
Neoliberalism
Policymakers

5. My Approach
As a Critical Discourse Analysis this work is focused on exploring the voices of a selection of SEL policy makers (government ministers, lobbyists and programme directors) interviewed in order to understand and identify how the SEL policy discourse worked ‘to privilege certain ideas and topics and speakers and exclude others’ (Ball, 2008, p. 5).
Grounded in critical theory, this thesis is in essence a discourse of resistance (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005) as I will argue that power and discourse, working through what Foucault (Foucault, 1995) termed governmentality, constructed and-driven by New Labour in Westminster, created and operationalised a specific objective list model of SEL designed to reflect and promote English neoliberal cultural values. In Wales the assembly adopted SEL as a tool for developing egalitarian social democratic notions of social justice (located in notions of a collective community) closely connected to understandings of national identity fuelled through the devolution process.

6. Standpoint study
the story of my journey as a researcher operating in the field of SEL and in particular my epiphany; the moment where I realised I was no longer willing to operate as a SEL expert and consultant for the neoliberal education establishment and rather started becoming a critical researcher.

7. My Rationale
The vast majority of previous SEL research has focused on operational issues. This thesis is different for it places the focus on exploring and unpicking the discourse driving the models of operational SEL. My research indicates that England invested heavily (DCSF 2007) in a universal, prescribed SEL programme (SEAL) delivered through an objective list (OLT) model and focused on behaviour, individual responsibility and the teachability of emotional traits (Watson et al., 2012). In contrast my research (Watson and Emery, 2009; Watson et al., 2012) suggests that practice in Wales was driven by a desire to develop SEL policy which reflected the local context and the social principles of the principality. This study develops the home/international body of work as well as presenting original critical thinking regarding the SEL discourse.

8. My Rationale 2
Finally my work is interested in pursuing an alternative route for talking about and understanding SEL. This perspective appeared relatively recently in the work of (Gillies, 2011; Evans, 2011; McLaughlin, 2008; Dahlstedt et al., 2011; Hoffman, 2009; Bailey, 2009) as well as my own writings in collaboration with Dr Debbie Watson (Watson et al., 2012). In essence the alternative way is interested in understandings of SEL that remove it from the limiting neoliberal approach and the constraints of the OLT model and place it within a frame of social transformation and social justice (Ball, 2008; Apple 2009).

9. Research Questions
How did the different versions of childhood wellbeing driving the English and Welsh policy models of SEL converge and diverge?
How was the development of SEL policy in England and Wales framed by New Labour?
What was the experience of policymakers who sought to develop and deliver SEL policy in England and Wales?
How did national tradition, history and identity influence the discourse and policy of Welsh and English SEL under New Labour?

10. My Methods
Methodology and methods are different. Methodology is the theory and thinking that that supports the research and locates it within a particular methodological tradition or paradigm, methods are the actual nuts and bolts of what was done.
Methodology
my intention was to undertake a ‘critical enquiry aimed at informing educational judgments in order to improve educational action’ (Bassey, 2003)

11. Methodology
This is a qualitative, standpoint CDA inquiry as social justice, and therefore sits within the body of work known as critical theory (Mack, 2010). Yet this thesis is determined to build on the ‘thinking and doing’ of Apple (2013) and therefore to go beyond deconstructing the dominant SEL discourse and move towards suggesting an alternative, democratic and thick version of SEL. It is this process that I believe places me in the position of both a critical theorist (deconstructing) and critical secretary (constructing) (Apple, 2013).
With this in mind I position this thesis within the realm of historical realism (Lincoln and Guba, 2000) which is generally associated with a critical theory paradigm and believes in the existence of a ‘virtual reality shaped by social, political, cultural, economic, ethnic and gender values crystallized over time’ (p. 168).

12. Methods

13. Analytical Frame
Fiarclough diagram

14. The literature

15. Early Findings

16. Discussion