Congratulations to Arushi Goswami on successfully defending her M.A. Thesis on November 27, 2025.
Thesis title:
Deconstructing the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) Framework and The Happiness Curriculum in the Context of Educational Neoliberalism and Emotional Governance
Examining Committee:
Dr. Lindsay Gibson (EDCP), External Examiner
Dr. Taylor Webb (EDST), Committee Member
Dr. Mona Gleason (EDST), Research Supervisor
Abstract:
This thesis examines Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) through a comparative analysis of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL, 2020) framework and Delhi’s Happiness Curriculum (HC, 2019). It addresses two research questions: What implicit values and assumptions about emotions are embedded within the CASEL and Happiness Curriculum frameworks, and how does the Happiness Curriculum in India adapt, resist, or reproduce CASEL’s approach to social emotional learning? and How does SEL function as a tool of emotional governance by using governmentality to shape students into self-regulating individuals in ways that align with broader socio-economic systems? Using Fairclough’s three-dimensional Critical Discourse Analysis together with a Foucauldian lens of governmentality, the study begins with an within-document description and keyword analysis for each framework, moves to cross-document comparison to identify convergences and adaptations, and then explains the findings. The findings indicate that by centering competencies like self-awareness, self-management, and “learning outcomes,” both frameworks organize emotions as skills to be optimized, individualize responsibility for improvement, and translate well-being into measurable performance targets. Read through governmentality, these patterns normalize self-monitoring and position well-being alongside achievement and readiness, shaping students as self-regulating individuals. Across both frameworks, the discourse privileges “positive” feelings such as calmness, happiness, and gratitude, with limited recognition of discomfort, anger, or grief as part of learning and social life. The thesis concludes by outlining implications for practice and design: broaden the emotional repertoire recognized in SEL frameworks, reduce the reliance on learning outcomes as proxies for emotional growth, and support participatory, context-grounded approaches that attend to well-being and collective flourishing within and beyond school.
Well done, Arushi!