Beyond content knowledge: fostering pre-service social studies teachers' social and emotional competencies

Purpose Increased classroom volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (Hadar et al., 2020; Pace and Stoddard, 2025) has heightened the need for social studies educators to be competent in the soft skills integral to navigating controversy and civic preparation, operationalized here as social and emotional competencies (SEC). Seizing opportunity in challenge, our team of university instructor-researchers piloted a Lesson Study Lab (LSL), which promoted pre-service social studies teachers' competencies in collaborative C3 inquiry planning and instruction (Weaver et al. 2025). The current study explored the question: Is the lesson study process associated with change in pre-service social studies teachers' SEC and teaching practices? Design/methodology/approach This article describes the LSL program, serving pre-service social studies teachers in our Midwestern state university, and the accompanying quantitative pretest-posttest quasi-experimental study of participants' social and emotional instruction and competencies. Findings Paired sample t-test analyses indicated that our (n = 69) pre-service teachers reported significant growth in social and emotional instructional interactions as well as social awareness, relationship skills, responsible decision-making and providing feedback after participating in the one-semester lab experience. Originality/value SEL researchers have primarily focused on interventions in K-8 classrooms. This has left a dearth of empirical research to inform social and emotional competency-building in secondary (Low and Van Ryzin, 2024), and more specifically, teacher preparation in higher education (Conklin and Hughes, 2016; Nenonene et al., 2019; Scanlon et al., 2025). The present study addressed this gap, exploring lesson study as a vehicle to build pre-service social studies teachers' SEC and teaching practices.