This master's thesis explores the attitude of Slovenian elementary school teachers towards
social and emotional learning and in what ways this is currently implemented in Slovenian
elementary schools. The theoretical part is divided into three sections. The first section
presents the individual concepts of social and emotional learning in elementary school. The
second section focuses on the interpretation of social and emotional learning programmes, and
the third section presents the teacher as a possible provider of social and emotional learning in
elementary school.
The empirical part describes the results of quantitative and qualitative research, in which
participated teachers of the first and the third triad of different Slovenian elementary schools.
The data was obtained through an online questionnaire that included closed-ended and openended
questions. Closed-ended questions were analyzed on the basis of the quantitative
approach and open-ended questions were analyzed on the basis of the qualitative approach.
The answers from the quantitative research have shown that teachers perceive social and
emotional learning as important, but lack the knowledge to implement the content, as well as
the time, due to being overburdened with the other learning material. Teachers believe that at
present there is not enough planned content in the elementary school in the field of social and
emotional learning, but it also appears that with appropriate knowledgewithmore involved
social and emotional learning in the curriculum and with additional support, teachers would
be ready to implement the mentioned contents. Qualitative research have shown that there are
some programmes in Slovenian elementary schools that encourage the development of social
and emotional competences for a school year or two, but none of these programmes cover the
entire elementary education. Responses have also shown that in schools where there are no
such programmes, teachers are willing to integrate social and emotional learning content into
their work with students on their own initiative, but how often, if at all, and in what ways, this
is then of course up to each individual teacher.
The conducted research complements some of the findings on social and emotional learning
in Slovenian elementary schools, as it shows what attitude teachers have towars this and what
could be done to make social and emotional learning in elementary schools more frequent and
planned.
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