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Teaching Emotional Intelligence in Schools: An Evidence-Based Approach

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Psychosocial Skills and School Systems in the 21st Century

Part of the book series: The Springer Series on Human Exceptionality ((SSHE))

Abstract

The skills of emotional intelligence, such as recognizing emotions in the self and others, understanding the causes and consequence of emotions, and effectively regulating the experience and expression of emotional responses, are essential for children’s success in school and life. Yet, many children arrive at school lacking these skills, which can impede them from reaching their full potential. This chapter describes RULER, a Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) SELect approach, to illustrate how the teaching and learning of emotional intelligence can be integrated into the core academic curricula. RULER uses multiple tools to nurture five interdependent skills: recognizing, understanding, labeling, expressing, and regulating emotions. The chapter focuses primarily on emotion regulation skills and on how the tools that RULER uses foster their development. The promise of formative assessments to enhance the teaching and learning of emotional intelligence is also discussed.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Mayer and Salovey’s model identifies four emotional intelligence skills: perceiving, using, understanding, and managing emotions. RULER builds the same set of skills but uses different labels to facilitate comprehension and recall within an education context. For example, recognizing emotion in RULER is similar to perceiving emotion in Mayer and Salovey’s model, with both referring to the accurate identification of emotions in the self and others. However, RULER distinguishes between “understanding” the causes and consequences of emotions and “labeling” emotions using a sophisticated vocabulary, whereas Mayer and Salovey combine these two areas into their understanding emotion branch.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mathematica Public Policy, Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, Yale University, 340 Edwards Street, New Haven, CT, 06520-8376, USA

    Catalina Torrente Ph.D.

  2. Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, Yale University, 340 Edwards Street, New Haven, CT, 06520-8376, USA

    Susan E. Rivers Ph.D. & Marc A. Brackett Ph.D.

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  1. Catalina Torrente Ph.D.
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  2. Susan E. Rivers Ph.D.
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  3. Marc A. Brackett Ph.D.
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Correspondence to Susan E. Rivers Ph.D. .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Educational Psychology, CUNY, Queens College and the Graduate Center,, Flushing, New York, USA

    Anastasiya A Lipnevich

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Trier, Trier, Germany

    Franzis Preckel

  3. Professional Examination Service, Center for Innovative Assessments, New York, New York, USA

    Richard D. Roberts

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Torrente, C., Rivers, S.E., Brackett, M.A. (2016). Teaching Emotional Intelligence in Schools: An Evidence-Based Approach. In: Lipnevich, A., Preckel, F., Roberts, R. (eds) Psychosocial Skills and School Systems in the 21st Century. The Springer Series on Human Exceptionality. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28606-8_13

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