Assessing Young Children’s Social-Emotional Development Through the Lens of Social-Cultural Ecological Systems

Young children’s social-emotional development refers to the development of capacities to form relationships, to express emotions, and to explore the environment. The social-emotional development is one of the critical factors contributing to their school readiness and future success beyond educational settings. However, assessing young children’s social-emotional development often utilizes standardized procedures based on developmental theories, which may lead to inaccurate diagnostic categories that do not reflect children’s cultural backgrounds. Further, these early diagnostic categories or labels could lead to lower expectations resulting in persistent achievement gaps. In this paper we discuss the assessment of young children’s social-emotional development through the lens of social-cultural ecological systems. This approach acknowledges that children's development is shaped by interactions with caregivers, peers, their home and neighborhood, as well as the broader environment and communities. First, we recognize the conceptual and operational misalignments of the current approaches to measuring and understanding social-emotional development. Second, we identify challenges in methodology related to assessing children’s social-emotional development. We then discuss the cultural context that is integral to children’s social-emotional development. To illustrate how the social-cultural ecological framework works in assessing children’s social-emotional development, we use a case study to demonstrate the content, context, interactive relationships of individuals, and implementation with collaborative teamwork.