Editorial [International Journal of Emotional Education, 2(1)]

Abstract

It is ironic that the increasing economic growth and prosperity in the western world today, appears to be accompanied by a decline in the social and emotional wellbeing of children. Layard and Dunn (2009) argue that children and young people today are being increasingly exposed to a world of violence, family break-ups, poverty, individualism, consumerism, and competition, robbing them of the joy and innocence of childhood and bringing distress and anxiety in their lives. They are living in a ‘SEBD-provocative world’. This is the thrust of the opening section in the first paper in this edition. Paul Cooper (UK) argues for the need to consider the negative influence of this ‘affluenza’ and other socio-cultural correlates on children’s emotional wellbeing and behaviour in seeking to develop social policies and educational practices conducive to children’s healthy social and emotional development. In the second part of the paper, Cooper focuses on the education for children and young people with social, emotional and behaviour difficulties, and calls for more sophisticated conceptions of the meaning of inclusive education for such students. He underlines the dangers of positions driven solely by ideological concerns about how provision ought to be irrespective of evidence of what works or does not work, and calls for a more rational and dispassionate look at the ways in which the inclusive education construct affects teachers and students in the real world.