Chinese early childhood educators’ manifestations of social-emotional competence at work: A qualitative study

Drawing on the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), this qualitative study explored how Chinese early childhood educators (ECEs) manifested their social-emotional competence (SEC) at work through interviews with 40 kindergarten teachers. Salient subthemes under each of the five CASEL elements were identified, including self-awareness (self-efficacy and emotional awareness), self-management (emotional regulation and behavioral control), social awareness (perspective taking, empathy and compassion, and cultural awareness), relationship skills (building and maintaining positive relationships, cooperation, and conflict resolution), and responsible decision-making (problem-focused decision-making and professional morality-driven decision-making). Of these subthemes, professional morality-driven decision-making emerged as a new subtheme in the Chinese context that had not been discussed by CASEL. Chinese ECEs were also found to prioritize self-efficacy over emotional awareness, emphasized relationship skills, and frequently used suppression as an emotional regulation strategy. These findings underscore the need to take cultural lens into account when SEC is examined internationally.