The world is facing an unprecedented change due to technological innovation, the globalization of products and trade, and demographic shifts that are significantly impacting the way of working and the characteristics required to work productively (International Labour Organization [ILO] 2019). In the face of such challenges, individuals need to develop additional, soft or transferable skills that can be applied to working regardless of the specific function occupied. In particular, the competences that refer to the emotional aspect of the individuals, namely emotional competences, may be particularly helpful in times of challenges and high uncertainty.

Emotional competences or skills may encompass several characteristics. Across the different theoretical frameworks, a primary role may be attributed to the following competences: emotional self-awareness or the ability to understand one’s own emotional reactions and their effects on thinking and behavior. Self-management (or self-control), which ensures better capacity to cope with uncertainty and the pressure of everyday life. Empathy and social awareness, which impact interpersonal relationships by creating more profound connections with others and an improved reciprocal understanding (Petrovici & Dobrescu, 2014). These competences have proved to be critical factors accounting for, among others, better social adjustment and higher employability (Nelis et al., 2011).

The development of emotional competences is particularly important for a population that faces frequent emotional ups and downs: that of adolescents. In particular, VET students and apprentices are experiencing a sensitive period of their life: the transition from adolescence to adulthood is condensed compared to other adolescents because they are required to become independent (financially and psychologically) earlier than students who pursue tertiary education (Masdonati et al. 2007). Hence, they are exposed to intense emotional reactions, such as those related to the fear of social exclusion, and to social environments (including peer pressure and job context) that may be perceived as stressful.

Emotional competences may foster resilience through the facilitation of stress regulation (Davis, 2018), by supporting better self-management and more effective interpersonal relationships. The benefits of interventions on emotional competences for students are numerous: better conflict management and emotion management, which may reduce youth violence and bullying (Brown et al., 2011) reduced dropout rate and stronger support in becoming more effective students, also from the point of view of social adaptation (Nathanson et al., 2016).

Emotional competences may also benefit another important actor in VET: professional schools’ teachers. The school environment is known to involve several stressors--such as classroom management, pressure from parents, responsibility for students’ learning—which account for high levels of burnout in this profession (Kinman et al., 2011). Several studies show that teachers’ well-being, resilience to stress, and effectiveness in class can be improved by training on emotional competences (e.g., Vignjević Korotaj & Mrnjaus, 2021).

In sum, interventions on emotional competences seem particularly suitable for supporting the development of key actors in VET, namely, students and teachers. While interventions and scientific contributions on emotional competences are flourishing in the educational contest, we observe few programs in Europe and a dearth of scientific contributions regarding emotional interventions in vocational education and training (VET).

With this contribution we aim to provide the state of the art on existing scientific publications about emotional training interventions in VET and a summary of existing programs at the European level. Ultimately our goal is to open a discussion around how emotional training may be regarded as a compelling domain of research for VET scholars and practitioners.

In the literature, emotional competences are sometimes grouped under the broader category of socio-emotional competences or more generally social competences or social skills (Monnier, 2015). The literature that traditionally has provided a theoretical framework for the development of such competences is that of emotional intelligence. Consequently, in our search we used different keywords that expressed the same concept and employed emotional intelligence as the theoretical framework. We selected the literature according to the following inclusion criteria. The studies had to: a) involve a training program aimed at improving socio-emotional competences; b) be in the VET context; c) include measures of emotional intelligence; d) date from 2000 to 2021; e) be written in English. We started by searching in the Web of Science database, using the keywords “emotional intelligence” OR “emotional competenc*” OR “social competenc*” OR “socio-emotional competenc*” OR “socio-emotional skills” OR “soft skills” OR “core skills” AND “vocational education and training” OR “VET”, obtaining 61,556 results. The screening procedure radically reduced the results: only two articles were selected (Madalinska-Michalak, 2015; Repetto Talavera & Pérez-González, 2007). We also checked on the ERIC, Taylor and Francis Education Online Archive, and Google Scholar databases, but no article was found to be relevant according to the inclusion criteria. To understand whether the lack of scientific reports corresponded to a lack of projects on socio-emotional competences, we further searched programs carried out in Europe. We applied the following inclusion criteria: They had to take place in Europe, be in VET, and include a training on socio-emotional competences. We also searched on Google and on websites of some targeted VET networks or institutions: CEDEFOP (European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training) and VETNET (European Research Network on Vocational Education and Training) at the European level; BiBB (Bundesinstitut für Berufsbildung) in Germany, and SERI (State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation) in Switzerland. In total we identified four programs at the European level. Overall, the analysis of programs shows that the domain of socio-emotional competences has been approached in VET, although the programs developed in most cases are not publicly available in terms of reports and summaries of the results obtained. Furthermore, the general impression is that these programs were more like first attempts to approach emotional competences in interventions, but they did not necessarily adopt a scientific approach in how the intervention was developed and its effects analyzed.

In this article we conducted a literature review on the topic of emotional competences, in particular searching for scientific articles describing training in socio-emotional competences in VET. Acknowledging the dearth of scientific contributions (only 2), we extended our search to programs developed in Europe. We found that there are only a few training programs on socio-emotional competences in VET developed so far, and, based on the materials publicly available, they seem to lack a rigorous scientific approach. We drew primarily on psychological approaches to socio-emotional competences to provide a theoretical framework that is rich in assessment methods and scientific evidence. These approaches require adaptation to the VET context specificities and to its literature of reference. Our analysis has raised a few important questions: Why are research and interventions on emotional competences so little developed in VET, in absolute terms and as compared to the educational and psychological domains? A possibility is that the role of emotions and of individual differences in emotional competences have not been recognized in VET yet, differently from what happened in education and psychology. Given the raising importance of transversal skills, which include emotional competences too, this dearth of contributions underscores a gap that needs to be addressed in future research and interventions. To what extent is it important to add socio-emotional competences in a VET curriculum? We believe that our analysis has highlighted a few good reasons why VET students would particularly benefit from this type of training and hope to raise interest and awareness about this compelling topic in VET.

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