1. Chapter 3 Social and Emotional Functioning in the Learning Environment

2. Learning, happiness and well-being
From birth children display a vast range of behaviours. Through our observations of these we make interpretations about their emotions and about how they learn.
Learning is a construct, however, that is not well understood (MacBlain, 2014) and is frequently viewed simply as what happens in the class-room with the result that children’s holistic needs and how these impact upon learning fail to be properly identified. Whitebread (2012, p15) has commented:
‘Within schools and other educational contexts, emotions are sometimes seen as a distraction, as an aspect of human behaviour which has to be coped with, but which is essentially irrelevant to the business of learning. In fact, everything we now know … suggests that this is a misguided and potentially highly damaging view’.

3. Emotional Intelligence
It is essential that children from as early an age as possible begin to understand and manage their own emotions and those of others. This has been referred to as emotional intelligence or, as it is sometimes called, emotional literacy. Salovey and Mayer (1990, p189) originally defined emotional intelligence as that:
‘… subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions’.

4. Emotional Intelligence
Salovey and Mayer proposed four factors central to emotional intelligence:
Perceiving emotions
Reasoning with emotions
Understanding emotions
Managing emotions
Children observe the emotions of those around them and become more sensitive to the behaviours of others. In doing so, they develop more sophisticated understandings of behaviour and language. They then engage with their emotions and extend their cognitive abilities. They attach meaning to emotions by increasingly forming interpretations of them and learn to manage their own feelings. This is crucial for children entering environments outside of the home where expectations are placed upon them by others.

5. Self-Efficacy
Bandura (1977, 1997) introduced us to the concept of ‘self- efficacy’
He proposed that children with poor self-efficacy overly struggle with tasks that present them with significant challenges and all- too-often present with poor self-confidence and low self-esteem.
Bandura identified four key psychological processes, which he proposed were directly influenced by those self-efficacy beliefs that individuals hold about themselves: cognitive, motivational, affective and selection.
When tasked with identifying personal learning goals, children with low self-efficacy will typically perform less well and may, for example, show limited interest in attempting tasks they feel are challenging; they may make little effort to complete them.

6. Loss in childhood: its impact on learning
Many children today experience significant loss, which can impact heavily upon their future learning.
Recently, the National Children’s Bureau’s website (NCB, 2016) cited how the Childhood Bereavement Network had reported that in nearly 40,000 children and young people across the UK had experienced the death of a parent.
The Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition (CYPMHC, 2012, p4) had previously suggested that in an average classroom, 10 children will have witnessed the separation of their parent and one child will have experienced the death of a parent.
Few teachers and practitioners in early years, however, have a clear understanding of how to manage loss and bereavement in young children and even less understanding of the longer-term impact on children’s learning (MacBlain, 2014).

7. References
Bandura, A. (1977) Social Learning Theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Bandura, A. (1997) Self-efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: Freeman.
CYPMHC (2012) Resilience and Results: How to Improve the Emotional and Mental Wellbeing of Children and Young People in Your School. The Children and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition.
MacBlain, S.F. (2014) How Children Learn. London: Sage.
National Children’s Bureau (NCB) (2016) Children's Grief Awareness Week - 40,000 children bereaved of a parent each year: children-bereaved-of-a-parent-each-year .
Salovey, P. and Mayer, J.D. (1990) Emotional Intelligence. Available at: Proper/EI1990%20Emotional%20Intelligence.pdf.