Teacher Narratives of Social-Emotional Competence Development: An Inquiry into Classroom Management in Inclusive Education Settings

Abstract

This interpretive research analyses teachers' accounts of how social-emotional competence is acquired and how it is connected to managing classrooms in the context of inclusive education. Based on the methodology of assertion development, this study deals with the construction and reconstruction of teachers' social-emotional competence in various educational settings by sharing stories about encountering critical moments, developmental processes, and situations of classroom management. Narrative inquiry offers the ability to see the meaning-making worlds of teachers who have the complexities of managing inclusive classrooms and building their own emotional capacity. There were five assertions: the process of developing social-emotional competence by teachers in managing difficult students' behaviours as opposed to formal training, narrative reconstruction, interdependence between teacher and student emotional regulation, crises in classroom management, and collegial storytelling recognised as key to teachers' competence growth. These findings illuminate how teachers experience their own social-emotional learning as inseparable from classroom management practice, suggesting that supporting teacher competence development requires practice-embedded approaches that honour the narrative nature of professional learning. This study is a methodological contribution, representing the power of narrative inquiry to demystify teacher development, and a practical contribution, being able to designate how teachers strive to demonstrate competence via reflective narratives.