The present study is a part of an international project “Hand in Hand - Social and Emotional Skills for Tolerant and Non-Discriminative Societies (A Whole School Approach)” – an EU-based universal Social, Emotional, and Intercultural (SEI) learning program. The project aims at promoting SEI competencies for students and school staff to prevent segregation and discrimination, and to promote an inclusive learning environment. A widely used theoretical model, Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) has been used to concretise the SEI competencies. It is comprised of five components: self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, 2005, p. 5). In the project, we have added intercultural competencies to the social awareness component. These components have been processed in the Hand in Hand teacher programme. A hypothesis is that an important prerequisite for an inclusive learning environment is the teachers’ compassion, empathy, cooperation, and cohesion. The teacher programme (Jensen, Gøetzsche, Andersen Réol, Dyrborg Laursen, & Lund Nielsen, 2018) emphasise these factors in both theoretical and practical ways. The present study investigates if the participating teachers have perceived improvements in their SEI competencies, classroom climate, relations or other factors related to SEI competencies. This is a quasi-experimental study with 12 participating schools in Sweden. We will look at the Swedish field trial as a case study. Teachers from six Swedish schools participated in the teacher programme, totally 35 teachers. The teachers have answered a questionnaire before and after the Hand in Hand teacher programme. They filled in written assessments in the end of each module and they were interviewed after the programme. The analysis of the quantitative data will be performed using e.g. t-tests to see if there are any differences between the measures before and after the programme. The qualitative data will be coded and categorised using the CASEL model. The preliminary results from the teachers indicate that they had a positive experience of the teacher programme. After the last training, the teachers made an assessment of the programme as a whole and the support was overwhelming. In total there were 23 answers by groups or by individual teachers an all 23 were satisfied with the programme. The teacher praised the combination of theory and exercises and the collaborative climate during the trainings. The teachers reported that they have used the programme to do exercises for themselves and also with the students.

Jensen, H., Gøetzsche, K., Andersen Réol, L., Dyrborg Laursen, H., & Lund Nielsen, B. (2018). HAND in HAND program for school staff, manual. Unpublished material.