Transitioning in early adolescence: rethinking the role of socioemotional learning (SEL) in the UK school curriculum to foster adaptive coping

The paper discusses the findings of a UK-based study that explores transition-related stress and coping strategies among young adolescents, a relatively under-researched topic within the UK context. An underused projective technique was employed to collect data from Year 7 students transitioning into a rural mainstream secondary school in the SouthWest of England. Drawing on later developments of Lazarus and Folkman’s (1984) transactional model of stress and coping, thematic codebook analysis revealed that young adolescents are likely to experience stress when facing academically focused tasks, experiencing challenging emotions, and when they are in socially uncomfortable environments. To cope with school stressors, most students indicated preference for adaptive emotion-focused strategies such as positive distraction, emotional regulation, and cognitive reappraisal, which can be important for students to navigate transition periods. The paper concludes by emphasising the crucial role of SEL in the school curriculum in fostering adaptive emotional coping strategies for young adolescents.