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Distributed Leadership and Teachers' Social and Emotional Learning Practices in Chinese Schools: A Relational
Mengting Qian1,2, Xianjun Yu3, Jingyi Yang4
1Faculty of Education, East China Normal University, 3663 North Zhongshan Road, Putuo District, Shanghai 200062, China.
Behavioral Sciences (Basel, Switzerland)
|May 4, 2026
Summary
School leadership significantly impacts social and emotional learning (SEL) practices. Distributed leadership enhances SEL teaching through teacher empathy and collaboration, highlighting the importance of relational factors in education.
Area of Science:
- Educational Leadership
- Social and Emotional Learning (SEL)
- Organizational Psychology
Background:
- Social and emotional learning (SEL) is a growing global education priority.
- The influence of school leadership on teachers' SEL practices, especially in non-Western settings, is not well understood.
- Relational Coordination Theory provides a framework to explore these leadership-practice links.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how distributed leadership influences teachers' SEL teaching practices.
- To examine the mediating roles of teacher collaboration and teacher empathy in this relationship.
- To test a sequential mediation model within the Chinese educational context.
Main Methods:
- Utilized data from 1299 teachers in the China sample of the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) 2024.
- Employed bootstrap-based mediation analysis (PROCESS Model 6) to test a sequential mediation model.
- Validated the measurement model using confirmatory factor analysis and established discriminant validity.
Main Results:
- Distributed leadership showed both direct and indirect associations with SEL teaching practices.
- Indirect effects accounted for 62.77% of the total association, with teacher empathy being the strongest mediator (45.74%).
- The sequential pathway through collaboration and empathy (12.16%) and collaboration alone (4.87%) also showed significant, though smaller, indirect effects.
Conclusions:
- Distributed leadership influences SEL teaching through relational mechanisms and teacher emotional capacities, extending Relational Coordination Theory to education.
- Effective SEL implementation requires leadership reform and cultivation of teacher collaboration and empathy.
- Findings emphasize the crucial role of supportive school environments in fostering SEL instruction.
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