The Need for a Racial Reckoning in the Education in Emergencies Community: A Focus on Social and Emotional Learning

Social emotional learning (SEL) is promoted as essential to achieving the education in emergencies (EiE) sector’s dual aims of protection and learning. Yet the diffusion of SEL from the Global North to crisis-affected contexts has largely escaped critical scrutiny. This article interrogates SEL’s contested histories and racialized assumptions, revealing how it often perpetuates white saviorism and reproduces white supremacy by erasing race from both practice and discourse. Much of the literature remains rooted in an ontology of “what works” rather than “what matters,” sidelining community knowledge and structural analysis. Drawing on critical race theory, we examine how SEL implementation in the Global South reinforces racial hierarchies and exploits the vulnerabilities of crisis-affected children. In response, we join wider calls for decolonization, reparation, and antiracist praxis in comparative and international education, offering pathways for reimagining SEL through Indigenous, community-driven, and emancipatory frameworks.