William Cope
Pinakini Shah
Nadia Ayub
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Samuel Chukwuemeka Obasi
Sara RichterLearning, Knowledge and Human Development MOOC’s Updates
4. The Social and Emotional Conditions of Learning: The Case of Bullying in Schools (Dorothy Espelage)
Comment: How do social and emotional conditions affect learning? (This, of course, is just as much the case for higher education, workplace learning, or informal learning in communities and personal life.)
Make an Update: Dorothy Espelage has taken just one area—bullying at school—where she hase used the methods of educational psychology to explore the social-emotional conditions of learning. Take an area of socio-behavioral learning interest or concern to you. What does the evidence tell? What are the main concepts we need to interpret the evidence?
Classical conditioning is a behaviorist concept developed by Ivan Pavlov. It explains how learning can happen through association. A neutral stimulus becomes linked to a meaningful stimulus, and eventually the neutral stimulus alone triggers a response. Learning happens because two things occur together repeatedly.
Example in Practice:
A preschool teacher rings a small bell every time it is time for clean-up. At first, the bell means nothing to the children. But after several days of hearing the bell followed by the teacher guiding everyone to put away materials, the children begin to associate the sound of the bell with clean-up time. Eventually, when the bell rings, the children automatically start cleaning even before the teacher says anything.
In this situation, the bell has become a conditioned stimulus that triggers a conditioned response (cleaning up).
Espelage argues that bullying in schools shouldn’t be seen just as isolated misbehavior or “kids being mean,” but as a problem rooted in the broader social‑emotional context of the school environment. That means the relationships, emotions, social skills, sense of belonging, and overall climate — not just individual “bad kids” — shape whether bullying happens.
In her framework, the development (or lack) of social‑emotional competencies — like empathy, emotion regulation, communication, perspective‑taking, problem‑solving, self‑awareness — plays a central role. Students who are taught and supported in these areas are less likely to bully others, be bullied, or passively allow bullying
Why it matters / What’s the takeaway
When schools embed social‑emotional learning (SEL) into their day‑to‑day culture — not as a one‑off lesson but as a core approach — bullying rates and aggressive behavior tend to drop. For example, in a study of middle‑schoolers, a SEL‑based intervention led by Espelage produced a 42% reduction in physical aggression after 15 weeks of lessons.
This suggests that preventing bullying isn’t just about punishing bullies — it’s about building a school environment where empathy, mutual respect, healthy communication, and emotional awareness are the norm. When students feel understood, connected, and emotionally equipped, schools become safer and more supportive places.
Addressing bullying through a social-emotional lens also means teachers, staff, peers, and the whole school community play a role, not just “punish‑and‑watch.”
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✏️ Implication for Schools and Educators (and Even Parents)
Schools should consider integrating SEL programs into their curriculum and daily practices — not only as separate “anti‑bullying lessons,” but as part of how all teaching, relationships, and school climate are structured.
Fostering a supportive school climate — one that values emotional literacy, empathy, healthy relationships, and respectful communication — can address not just bullying, but overall well‑being, academic success, and positive youth development.
Parents and stakeholders should view bullying not merely as individual misbehavior, but as a symptom of social-emotional breakdown — meaning interventions should focus on building empathy, emotional regulation, and supportive relationships, not just discipline.
Dorothy Espelage’s work on The Social and Emotional Conditions of Learning highlights how bullying in schools directly undermines students’ psychological safety and, consequently, their ability to learn. She emphasizes that bullying is not merely an individual misbehavior but a systemic issue shaped by peer dynamics, school climate, and social norms. Espelage argues that students thrive academically and emotionally when schools foster supportive relationships, teach social-emotional skills, and implement evidence-based prevention programs. Her research underscores that addressing bullying is essential not only for student well-being but for creating learning environments where all students can fully engage and succeed.
Espelage, Dorothy L., Sabina Low, Joshua R. Polanin & Eric C. Brown (2013). The Impact of a Middle School Program to Reduce Aggression, Victimization, and Sexual Violence. Journal of Adolescent Health, 53, 180–186.
Also relevant: Espelage, D. L., & Susan M. Swearer (2003). Research on School Bullying and Victimization: What Have We Learned and Where Do We Go from Here? School Psychology Review, 32(3), 365‑383.
Social and emotional conditions shape how people learn because they influence attention, memory, and motivation. When stress rises — whether from academic pressure, social conflict, or life instability — cognitive resources get redirected toward coping rather than processing new information. A recent review by Slavich (2020) highlights how stress disrupts neural systems involved in learning, particularly those supporting working memory and executive control. These findings line up with large-scale survey data from the American College Health Association (2023), which show that students reporting high stress also report more difficulty concentrating, completing coursework, and retaining information. Taken together, the evidence makes it clear that learning doesn’t happen in isolation — emotional stability and social support are core conditions for cognitive performance.
If we take chronic stress and burnout in college students as an example of a socio-behavioral learning concern, two concepts help make sense of the evidence. The first is allostatic load, which captures the cumulative biological strain produced by prolonged stress. Higher allostatic load has been linked to weaker academic performance and more cognitive fatigue. The second concept, self-regulation, describes the emotional and cognitive strategies people use to manage stress and stay focused during learning. Students with stronger self-regulation skills tend to weather stress more effectively and maintain better engagement, even in challenging environments. In short, research shows that the social-emotional climate surrounding a learner is not just a background factor — it directly shapes how well the brain can take in, organize, and use new information.
References:
American College Health Association. (2023). National College Health Assessment III: Undergraduate student reference group executive summary. ACHA.
Slavich, G. M. (2020). Social safety theory: A biologically based evolutionary perspective on life stress, health, and behavior. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 16, 265–295.
Learning almost always involves other people, and your relationships make a huge difference. If you have good relationships, You feel comfortable asking for help from a teacher, mentor, or friend.You can work well in a team or study group without getting into arguments and you get ideas from others, which makes your learning richer.
Social and emotional conditions have a profound impact on learning because they shape how students engage, process, and retain information. When learners feel safe, supported, and connected, they are more likely to take risks, ask questions, and persist through challenges. Conversely, negative social-emotional conditions—such as stress, anxiety, or exclusion—can impair attention, memory, and motivation, reducing the effectiveness of learning across all settings, from classrooms to workplaces to informal community learning.
Supporting the Whole Learner
Learners often need emotional, academic, and social support to succeed. Counseling psychologists help by providing guidance, coping strategies, and motivation. Their role is to create a supportive environment that addresses mental health, learning barriers, and personal growth using methods like individual counseling, workshops, and mentorship.
(Hood, 2020)
One educational counseling need I find important is supporting students dealing with academic stress and anxiety. Many learners struggle with pressure to perform, which affects motivation and well-being. Counseling programs that teach stress management, mindfulness, and time management can help improve both mental health and academic success.
(American Psychological Association, 2023)
Supporting the Whole Learner
Learners often need emotional, academic, and social support to succeed. Counseling psychologists help by providing guidance, coping strategies, and motivation. Their role is to create a supportive environment that addresses mental health, learning barriers, and personal growth using methods like individual counseling, workshops, and mentorship.
(Hood, 2020)
One educational counseling need I find important is supporting students dealing with academic stress and anxiety. Many learners struggle with pressure to perform, which affects motivation and well-being. Counseling programs that teach stress management, mindfulness, and time management can help improve both mental health and academic success.
(American Psychological Association, 2023)
Option #1 — Comment
Social and emotional conditions shape learning by modulating attention, motivation, and self-regulation—core capacities that determine whether effort becomes mastery or merely compliance. In Philippine TVL automotive workshops, stressors such as peer harassment in the shop bay, unsafe climates, and inadequate sleep during early call-times can depress engagement and problem-solving, while positive climates and consistent adult responses to misconduct enhance persistence and skill transfer (e.g., diagnosing brake noise under time pressure). Recent syntheses confirm that school climate and SEL-aligned efforts relate to reductions in bullying and improved adjustment, and that whole-school programs can modestly but reliably reduce both perpetration and victimization when implemented with fidelity (useful for workshop teams where bystander norms matter). At the same time, neuroscience offers a complementary lens by showing how arousal and attention are instantiated in the brain and how synchronized engagement emerges in real classrooms; its strength is mechanistic specificity (e.g., neural markers of attention), while its weakness is the risk of “neuromyths” or overgeneralizing lab findings to complex school ecologies without considering culture, poverty, or implementation realities common in Philippine public SHS settings. Balanced use—climate + SEL + context-aware application of neural evidence—best supports TVL learners’ competency development.
Update:
In TVL automotive bays, “micro-cultures” (peer norms around teasing and tool-use risk-taking) can become gateways to bullying and unsafe practices. Evidence from recent reviews indicates that (a) climate-building with explicit anti-bullying norms and teacher consistency, (b) universal SEL with practice of help-seeking and bystander action, and (c) whole-school monitoring (hot-spot mapping of shop areas) reduce bullying—effects are modest but meaningful when fidelity is high. Translating this: establish a Safety & Respect Protocol posted at each bay; run short, skills-integrated SEL routines (e.g., 3-minute “crew check-ins” before diagnostics); and adopt a simple, anonymous incident log that the TVL department reviews weekly to adjust supervision. These moves are conceptually anchored in school-climate science and supported by meta-analytic evidence on anti-bullying programs, while remaining feasible in resource-constrained SHSs.
Option #1
Social and emotion have an effect in our learning as it directly influence our cognitive processes, motivation and engagement also our overall well being. It impact our attention and memory as our emotion acts as a filler for what information our brain processes for example high level of stress or anxiety consume our cignitive resourcess that lead to our narrowed focuse and difficulty in concentrating meanwhile curiosity or interest enhance our system which lead into seeking more information that affect our long term memory
@Kristial Angelie Viernes, Social and emotional factors greatly affect how we learn because they influence our attention, motivation, and memory. For example, high stress or anxiety can narrow our focus and make it hard to concentrate, while curiosity and interest can boost engagement and help us retain information longer.
@Kristial Angelie Viernes, Social and emotional factors greatly affect how we learn because they influence our attention, motivation, and memory. For example, high stress or anxiety can narrow our focus and make it hard to concentrate, while curiosity and interest can boost engagement and help us retain information longer.
@Kristial Angelie Viernes, Social and emotional factors greatly affect how we learn because they influence our attention, motivation, and memory. For example, high stress or anxiety can narrow our focus and make it hard to concentrate, while curiosity and interest can boost engagement and help us retain information longer.