The framework spells out the competencies, processes, and strategies that effective P-12 educators need to employ in order to build students' social and emotional learning. The book is based on a decade of pioneering work by the Center for Reaching and Teaching the Whole Child at San José State University, building on the work of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) and on research about effective teaching and learning and culturally responsive practices.

Teaching with a Social, Emotional, and Cultural Lens serves as a critical roadmap for educators, whether they are university faculty searching for how to bring a social, emotional, and cultural lens into their methods or foundations course and field work experiences, or classroom teachers hoping to infuse critical skill building into the everyday academic learning that is the traditional focus of schools.