Language, Literature and Education: Research Updates Vol. 12

Education influences children's development not only through the knowledge it transmits but also through the emotional meanings, relationships and opportunities for participation that it creates. Yet feelings are frequently treated as individual competencies to be measured or controlled, rather than experiences that connect children with their social environments. This critical narrative review examines how education shapes emotional understanding, regulation, motivation, belonging and wellbeing from preschool to adolescence. Literature published between 2000 and 27 July 2026 was identified through web-mediated scholarly searches, citation searching and bibliographic verification. Developmental theories, observational studies, intervention trials and research syntheses were interpreted according to their design, measurement quality, developmental relevance and contextual limitations. Evidence supports average improvements in proximal social and emotional outcomes following evaluated educational programmes, particularly in early childhood. Relationships with teachers and peers, perceived control and value, and opportunities for autonomous participation provide complementary explanations for these effects. However, associations between emotional competence and achievement do not establish that teaching emotional skills causes academic improvement. Long-term intervention findings are inconsistent, universal mental-health effects are generally small, and a large adolescent mindfulness trial did not demonstrate superiority over usual provision. Cultural assumptions, inadequate reporting of disability and other marginalised identities, and reliance on adult ratings constrain claims of universal benefit. A relational-developmental interpretation is advanced in which emotional skills are resources whose usefulness depends on the environments in which children exercise them. Educational practice should therefore combine explicit emotional learning with responsive teaching, safe relationships, meaningful participation and differentiated support. Research priorities include stronger measurement of lived emotional experience, tests of contextual mechanisms, sustained follow-up and participatory evaluation across diverse settings. Education's developmental contribution is most defensible when it expands children's capacity to understand and act on feelings without equating wellbeing with compliance or promising outcomes beyond the evidence.