The value of communal and intergenerational settings for studying social and emotional learning

Abstract

Indigenous Latinx youth living in the United States are culturally diverse individuals whose experiences are often unrecognized. These diasporic youth identify, learn, and develop cultural strengths amid their upbringing outside their Native communities by engaging in integrated communal endeavors informed by Indigenous values. In this article, we present research on how interconnected aspects of diasporic Indigenous practices contribute to the social and emotional development of youth in middle childhood and adolescence. We focus on Indigenous familial and communal experiences that contribute to developmental processes. We provide nuanced perspectives to studying social and emotional learning (SEL) outside the traditional school setting by expanding to communal contexts. We examine comunalidad (communality) and intergenerational practices to consider how transformative SEL can be more inclusive of Indigenous ways of knowing and living. Our focus is the cultural strengths these communities bring to the SEL competencies of relationships and social awareness, which are applicable to the development of all children.