Abstract

There is ample evidence of how social emotional and behavior programs help support students turn frustration and anger to productive struggle; yet many social and behavior correction programs do not balance social and cultural differences nor account for how different cultural beliefs will impact the skills the students will have in these situations. Currently, as traditional education functions, it is systemically plagued with dominance of the White English-speaking culture while often viewing people of color or non-native English speakers as deficits or having skills and behaviors that need to be adjusted. As shown by the serious lack of research, there is a need to address cultural relevance and sustainability of social emotional learning programs in schools, and this learning module is to help teachers, either in training or by profession, to be able to reflect on the programs and also to improve them to make them more culturally relevant and sustainable.