Abstract:

Developing personal resilience constitutes a significant condition in individuals' ability to cope with challenges across various life domains, particularly for children, adolescents, and adults with special needs. While educational systems worldwide encourage the advancement of inclusion processes for learners with special needs, addressing cognitive, emotional, social, and other aspects of all learners, there is virtually no attention given to the need to develop the personal resilience of educational professionals themselves. This gap is particularly concerning given that efficient inclusion depends not only on learners’ adaptive capacities but equally on the coping abilities of educators and families who support them. When educational teams and parents lack resilience resources, inclusion processes face significant obstacles, potentially undermining the very goals they seek to achieve.

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is one of the significant educational approaches integrated into education systems worldwide, and developing personal resilience constitutes one of its core principles. However, SEL frameworks have predominantly focused on learners development, with limited attention to how these principles might support the adults facilitating inclusive environments.

The purpose of this study was to deepen understanding of the meaning of "resilience" in the context of the education system's role for all learners, particularly for learners with special needs. This was achieved through incorporating attention to Social-Emotional Learning and its contribution to developing resilience among diverse learners and the professionals and families who support them.

This qualitative study examined educational leaders' and parents' perceptions regarding the contribution of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) to developing professional resilience in the context of including learners with special needs. Fifty semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 teachers and 20 parents.

The findings reveal that while respondents recognize the importance of resilience, different understandings of the concept exist along with varied approaches to its implementation. The need emerged for developing a "bidirectional resilience" model that supports both learners and educational teams. The study emphasizes the importance of integrating SEL principles into educator training and systemic support to ensure successful inclusion processes.

The research contributes to a deeper understanding of resilience dynamics in the education system and proposes a conceptual framework for developing supportive policies that move beyond focused interventions for every learner to recognize that building coping capacity among educational teams and families is essential for sustainable, meaningful inclusion.

Keywords:

Inclusion, Resilience, Educational leaders, SEL.