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Soft Skills in Education Putting the evidence in perspective

Soft Skills in Education

Jaap Scheerens Greetje van der Werf Hester de Boer •

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Soft Skills in Education Putting the evidence in perspective

123

Jaap Scheerens University of Twente Enschede, The Netherlands

Greetje van der Werf GION University of Groningen Groningen, The Netherlands

Hester de Boer GION University of Groningen Groningen, The Netherlands

ISBN 978-3-030-54786-8 ISBN 978-3-030-54787-5 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54787-5

(eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

The theme of this book is a critical review of the trend to give social and emotional skills—sometimes called ‘soft skills’—a more prominent place in education. Sometimes, we will refer to this trend as a movement, which term might suggest that we consider the trend as ideological. The Concise Oxford Dictionary gives a more neutral definition of the term ‘movement’: “a series of actions and endeavors of a body of persons for a specific object”. From an academic perspective, the trend can be treated as a research and development program. And this is the overriding perspective that will be taken although normative issues are also at stake. Our key interest is clarification of ideas and concepts of social-emotional attributes and interrogation of the evidence on their malleability by educational interventions. To the extent that concepts remain vague and visions are not supported (or even supportable) by empirical evidence, we might still encounter ideology. Our orientation towards the social a