Question:
In the paper on emotional competencies written with Núria Pérez Escoda, you highlight their application in different areas, and we see that, I quote verbatim, “practical applications in education are a current topic of research and dissemination.” Could you tell us what percentage or relevance the research specifically in social education would have? What is the reason for this?
Answer:
Research develops as long as there are researchers willing to invest time and energy in exploring a small part of knowledge. In this sense, emotional education applied to social education is researched when there are people who want to dedicate themselves to it; often without remuneration for the time invested. This is why there is research or not in a specific field. It logically also depends on whether public administrations or sponsoring entities want to promote a particular line of research. Currently, the priority research lines tend to be in fields like engineering, medicine, computer science, biochemistry, etc. Institutionally, there is little or no interest in allocating budgets for research in emotional education. As a result, there are few studies on emotional education applied to social education. However, there are also few studies on emotional education in general. That said, there is a substantial number of works (which cannot strictly be called research) applying emotional education to social education in fields such as open-air education, training in skills in penitentiary centers, intercultural education, etc.
Emotional Competencies in social education: Relevance and practical applications in educational research