Gender‑Attentive SEL: Lessons from Pakistani Secondary Schools

Boys in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa secondary schools described emotional expression as tightly linked to peer status and everyday school discipline, with the authors reporting that sadness, fear, and crying were often treated as reputational liabilities for adolescent boys. In participants’ accounts, anger and “toughness” were framed as more socially intelligible ways to defend dignity, while open vulnerability was portrayed as something that could be policed through teasing or feminizing labels. The authors also describe situational, conditional spaces—often private or relationship-based—where boys reported being able to talk about stress or failure with less social penalty. Across these accounts, school norms and surveillance were described as shaping which emotions felt “safe” to show in ordinary school life.

The authors report a qualitative, multi-site study conducted in three urban secondary schools in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (two government and one private), drawing on focus groups and interviews (n = 38) with boys aged 13–16 and with educators (teachers and school counsellors). Data collection combined three focus group discussions with boys (total n = 18), semi-structured interviews with boys (n = 10), and semi-structured interviews with educators (n = 10); sessions were conducted in Pashto and Urdu and held in private school spaces as described. For analysis, the authors describe using reflexive thematic analysis informed by critical masculinity theory, the sociology of emotions, and transformative SEL frameworks. They present the dataset as supporting context-grounded accounts of how emotion, respectability, and school routines are negotiated in daily practice.

In the reported themes, sadness and fear were framed as socially risky for boys, while anger was described as a status-protecting signal of strength in peer and teacher-facing settings. Boys also described learning to “switch off” feelings—monitoring face, voice, and tears—as a form of emotion work tied to locally valued ideals of endurance and honor, rather than as a simple absence of feeling. Alongside this, the authors describe “islands of care” in which privacy, dignity, and trusted relationships (with certain teachers or a small number of peers) allowed more conditional disclosure about stress or setbacks. The authors also report ambivalence around SEL-like moments: participants described that activities meant to encourage emotion-talk could widen emotional repertoires in some circumstances, but could also reproduce stigma when vulnerability was read as “unmanly.”

Participants described SEL-like activities—including circle discussions, group projects, and informal counselling or pastoral talks—as double-edged, depending on facilitation and classroom norms. The authors report that boys were more willing to participate when ridicule was actively prevented, privacy was protected, and the interactional tone signaled respect rather than judgment, including through indirect entry points such as stories or hypothetical examples that reduced personal exposure. Participants also described that when disclosures were met with laughter, or when emotion-talk occurred in a peer-audience setting without safeguards, the same formats could become sites where stigma was amplified and future sharing was deterred. They further described a perceived contradiction when teachers invited openness in one moment but reinforced “real men don’t cry” messages in routine gender talk. Across these accounts, facilitation and norm-setting were portrayed as shaping whether disclosure felt safe.

Building on these findings, the authors propose five findings-grounded gender-attentive SEL design principles, including graduated emotional entry points (starting with comparatively “safer” emotions before moving toward more stigmatized affects), explicit anti-ridicule norms before disclosure-oriented activities, and indirect pedagogy with privacy protections to reduce the social exposure attached to personal sharing.

Key Takeaways:

• The authors report that masculinity and status were described as shaping which emotions boys could display openly, with vulnerability portrayed as socially costly and anger framed as more acceptable.
• Participants described “islands of care” as conditional spaces for disclosure that depended on privacy, dignity, trust, and non-shaming interaction.
• The authors’ proposed principles emphasize graduated emotional entry points, anti-ridicule and privacy protections, teacher self-disclosure, and coherence between SEL messages and everyday facilitation and gender talk.