Education should be relevant to communities and to the changing workplace of the 4th Industrial Revolution. Social and emotional learning skills make up a large component of the required skills for academic achievement and workforce development. This chapter discusses the nature and value of SEL by giving voice to the perceptions of educators from five different countries in the Global South, using a meta-ethnographic approach. The chapter discusses the perspectives of educators regarding the ways in which SEL skills can be developed. The similarities and differences are compared and contrasted with educators’ experiences in Guatemala in Central America and Burkina Faso, South Africa, Togo, and Uganda on the continent of Africa. The seven common emerging constructs from countries in Africa were: self-knowledge, self-control, self-regulation, empathy and compassion, valuing and accepting cultural diversity, interpersonal relationships, decision-making, and respect. The discussion illustrates that the salience of specific SEL skills varies based on the unique history and context of each country.

Education Science, Global South, workforce transitions