The state of evidence for social and emotional learning: A contemporary meta-analysis of universal school-based SEL interventions

Promoting Psychological Well-being in Preschoolers Through Mindfulness-based Socio-emotional Learning: A Randomized-controlled Trial

Mental health issues in children and young people are frequent and can have enduring negative consequences. Preventive early interventions delivered at school may foster psychological well-being, and preliminary evidence suggests that mindfulness-based social and emotional learning (SEL) interventions have positive effects on children's mental health. The aim of this study was to evaluate a mindfulness-based SEL curriculum including a French adaptation of the Kindness Curriculum (KC), delivered by pre-kindergarten teachers, in a cluster randomized control trial. Sixty-four classes (761 children, aged 38-58 months) from a socio-economically disadvantaged area in France were randomly assigned to either intervention or waiting-list control conditions. Indicators of children's mental health, self-management, positive relationships with teachers and peers, emotional processing and executive functioning were collected through teacher-rated questionnaires, standardized observations, and behavioral tasks. Results in the whole sample indicated a positive effect of the intervention on children's mental health, including a reduction in emotional, conduct and peer relationship problems, and a reduction in teacher-child conflicts. No significant effects were found on the other indicators. Heterogeneity analyses revealed stronger effects of the intervention on several indicators for children who had a teacher with lower level of teaching experience, for children with lower baseline mental health and for older children. This program therefore appears as a promising early school-based intervention promoting mental health and positive relationships, especially in a subgroup of at-risk preschool-aged children.

Review of the effects of social and emotional learning on mental health and academic outcomes: The role of teacher training and supportive interactions

Child and youth mental health in France has become an important public health priority. Social and emotional learning has been shown to contribute to mental health in children and adolescents. Therefore, an increasing number of interventions are being proposed in schools. However, teachers are not yet trained to develop these competencies through evidence-based interventions during their initial training. One way of increasing motivation and investment in teacher training in social and emotional learning is to increase awareness of the effects on academic outcomes. The aim of this scoping review based on systematic reviews and meta-analyses is to present the effectiveness of school-based social and emotional learning programs on mental health and academic success, while specifying the contributing processes such as motivation, teacher training, and student support. The discussion section suggests several avenues to promote the development of psychosocial competencies in school settings, notably based on teacher training.

Gender, racial-ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in the development of social-emotional competence among elementary school students

Social-emotional competence (SEC) has been demonstrated to be a crucial factor for student mental health and is malleable through the high-quality implementation of effective school-based social and emotional learning (SEL) programs. SEL is now widely practiced in the United States as a Tier 1 strategy for the entire student body, yet it remains unclear whether disparities exist in the development of SEC across socio-culturally classified subgroups of students. Also, despite the field's widespread concern about teacher bias in assessing SEC within diverse student bodies, little evidence is available on the measurement invariance of the SEC assessment tools used to explore and facilitate SEC development. Based on a sociocultural view of student SEC development, this study aimed to measure and examine the extent to which gender, racial-ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities exist in SEC developmental trajectories during elementary school years. Specifically, using 3 years of SEC assessment data collected from a districtwide SEL initiative (N = 5452; Grades K-2 at baseline; nine measurement occasions), this study (a) tested the measurement invariance of a widely-used, teacher-rated SEC assessment tool (DESSA-Mini) across student gender, race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic status (SES); and (b) examined the extent to which multiyear SEC growth trajectories differed across these subgroups under a routine SEL practice condition. The invariance testing results supported strict factorial invariance of the DESSA-Mini across all the examined subgroups, thereby providing a foundation for valid cross-group comparisons of student SEC growth. The piecewise latent growth modeling results indicated that boys (vs. girls), Black students (vs. White students), Hispanic students (vs. White students), and low-income students (vs. middle-to-high-income students) started with a lower level of SEC, with these gaps being sustained or slightly widened throughout 3 elementary school years. Based on these findings, this study calls for future research that can inform practice efforts to ensure equitable SEC assessments and produce more equitable SEL outcomes, thereby promoting equity in school mental health.

Psychosocial competences in the continuing training of French National Education professionals in 2024: A major issue in promoting health in school environment

OBJECTIVE

Promoting health, and in particular developing psychosocial competences, at school encourages the emancipation of pupils and creates a favourable school environment. Furthermore, by helping to improve academic success, they improve pupils' overall health. However, school professionals need to be trained to develop students' psychosocial competences. The aim of this study was to describe the perceptions of French National Education professionals who have attended in-service training in psychosocial competences.

METHOD

This research adopts a mixed methodology. An online questionnaire was administered to 304 professionals in order to measure their levels of satisfaction and professional development following the training. Then, 14 professionals took part in individual semi-structured interviews to discuss their needs and the obstacles and levers they encountered in reinvesting what they had learned into their professional practice.

RESULTS

The quantitative data showed that the professionals have an average satisfaction rating ranging from 6.96 to 8.22 out of 10 depending on the variable measured, but that they need to discover more tools and practices to develop psychosocial competences (79.28%). The qualitative data reveal that continuing training enables National Education professionals to exchange ideas with their peers and to review their posture (78.57%). They were able to experiment with psychosocial competences according to their needs and modified their practices as a result of the training (57.14%).

CONCLUSION

This study suggests that continuing training in psychosocial competences leads to changes in the attitudes and practices of National Education professionals, despite significant heterogeneity in terms of the length of training. Future research could focus on the actual practices of professionals trained in the development of psychosocial competences in order to assess the difficulties they encounter.

Adolescent Social Anxiety, School Satisfaction, Family Emotional Support, and School Absenteeism: Findings from Young-HUNT3 and Norwegian National Education Data

Background: Adolescents grappling with social anxiety may experience poor school satisfaction, resorting to school-related avoidance behaviors, exemplified by absenteeism, as a coping mechanism. Understanding the role of family support in alleviating the adverse effects of social anxiety on school satisfaction is imperative for fostering supportive educational settings. Although there is literature regarding how school satisfaction promotes positive adolescent outcomes, empirical knowledge on the interrelation between social anxiety, school satisfaction, and family emotional support is limited. This study investigates the association between social anxiety, family emotional support, school satisfaction, and school absenteeism within the theoretical framework of the stage-environment fit theory to offer insight into how family emotional support can moderate the influence of social anxiety on school-related outcomes. Methods: Utilizing a population-based sample of 1861 upper secondary school pupils from the Trøndelag Young Health study "Young-HUNT3 study", we employed an index of moderated mediation to examine the role of family emotional support in moderating the association between social anxiety and school-related avoidance behavior related to school satisfaction. Results: Family emotional support had moderated mediation association for school absenteeism (β = 0.128, 95% CI 0.019, 0.278) and extracurricular activity (β = -0.003, 95% CI -0.008, -0.000). Conclusions: This urges further investigation into the specific mechanisms and individual differences influencing these relationships, aiming to deepen our understanding of adolescents' experiences and inform comprehensive strategies for promoting their well-being within school communities.

Which aspects of education are health protective? a life course examination of early education and adulthood cardiometabolic health in the 30-year study of early child care and Youth Development (SECCYD)

BACKGROUND

Past research describes robust associations between education and health, yet findings have generally been limited to the examination of education as the number of years of education or educational attainment. Little is known about the specific features or processes underpinning education that are health protective. The objective of the current study was to address this gap by examining specific aspects of early education pertaining to student characteristics and experiences, as well as features of the classroom environment, in predicting cardiometabolic health in adulthood.

METHODS

Subjects were 1364 participants in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD, 1991-2009) and recent SECCYD 30-year follow-up, the Study of Health in Early and Adult Life (SHINE, 2018-2022). Models examined individual education indicators (student social skills, student-teacher relationship quality, and classroom emotional and instructional quality in the period of elementary school and student academic performance between ages 54 months and 15 years) in relation to a composite of cardiometabolic risk in adulthood (ages 26-31), reflecting central adiposity, blood pressure, insulin resistance, inflammation, and dyslipidemia. Models were adjusted for key explanatory factors including socio-demographics, infant characteristics, parental socioeconomic status (SES), and child health status. Follow-up analyses were performed to test potential mediators of early education effects on adult health, including adult SES (educational attainment, household income) and health behaviors (diet quality, activity level, sleep duration, smoking).

RESULTS

In adjusted models, results showed greater student social skills, indexed by a mean of annual teacher ratings between kindergarten and 6th grade, predicted lower cardiometabolic risk in adulthood (β=-0.009, p <.05). In follow-up analyses, results showed the protective effect of student social skills on cardiometabolic risk may be mediated by adult income (β=-0.0014, p <.05) and diet quality (β=-0.0031, p <.05). Effects of the other early education indicators were non-significant (ps > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS

Findings point to the potential significance of early student social competence as a link to long-term health, possibly via the acquisition of resources needed for the maintenance of health, as well as through engagement in health behaviors supporting healthy eating. However, more research is needed to replicate these findings and to elaborate on the role of early student social competence and the pathways explaining its effects on cardiometabolic health in adulthood.

Fundamental Themes in Social-Emotional Learning: A Theoretical Framework for Inclusivity

Social-emotional learning (SEL) is a rapidly growing field of research that has garnered significant attention in recent years. Each facet of SEL research in fields such as education, mental health, and developmental research has used specific methodologies and terms in their narrow research focus. In education specifically, where the most SEL research has been produced, many frameworks have implementation requirements. The lack of a framework focused on overarching themes without implementation requirements prevents the fields from coming together to compile and compare research and progress to create parent-, adult-, or mental health-specific SEL programs. This paper provides a conceptual analysis of SEL, aimed at clarifying the concept and deconstructing its various facets. This framework is needed to acknowledge the many different terms and skills for the same principle while also narrowing down definitions for clarity. The resulting framework can be used as a basis for future research, practice, and policy discussions in the field.

Effective Components of Social Emotional Learning Programs: A Meta-analysis

Previous reviews have synthesized the impacts of universal school-based social emotional learning (SEL) programs. However, they have yet to attempt a meta-analytic approach with rigorous inclusion criteria to identify the key SEL components and explore what make these programs work. This study aims to fill that gap by examining the impacts of SEL programs and exploring the moderating effects of methodological characteristics, implementation features, and program components on SEL effectiveness. The final sample consisted of 12 high-quality SEL programs, 59 studies, and 83,233 participants, with an overall effect size of 0.15. Meta-regression results indicated that these SEL programs could significantly improve youth social emotional skills, reinforce affect and attitudes, promote academic performance, increase prosocial behaviors, and reduce antisocial behaviors. Training teachers' social emotional skills and reducing cognitive elements in SEL curricula were found to be effective components of SEL programs, whereas pedagogical activities, climate support, and family engagement were not. Large-scale studies of SEL programs tended to generate smaller effect sizes, and those with low program dosages were found to be less effective than those approaching the recommended dosage. Policy and practical implications on how to scale SEL programs are discussed.

Sparking Virtuous Cycles: A Longitudinal Study of Subjective Well-Being and Grit During Early Adolescence

In cross-sectional research, subjective well-being and grit are found to be positively correlated. Their mutually reinforcing effects are particularly relevant for youth entering early adolescence because, during this developmental period, both well-being and grit have been shown to predict consequential outcomes later in life. However, their mutual relation has not yet been investigated in early adolescence. This study, therefore, examined the possibility of a virtuous cycle linking subjective well-being and grit during early adolescence. Self-report questionnaires of grit and subjective well-being were completed by N = 5291 children in China (47.6% girls; initial Mage = 9.69, SDage = 0.59) on six occasions over 3 academic years. In random-intercept cross-lagged panel models (RI-CLPMs), within-person changes in grit predicted within-person changes in subjective well-being 6 months later, and vice versa. Notably, analyses revealed an asymmetry in this cycle: paths from subjective well-being to grit were stronger and more reliable than the converse. Likewise, facet-level analyses showed that the predictive power of the perseverance component (of grit) and the affective component (of subjective well-being), respectively, was greater than the passion and cognitive components, respectively. These findings highlight the potential of boosting happiness for catalyzing positive youth development and, in addition, foreground the utility of studying these composite constructs at the facet level.

Registered Reports in Child Development: Introduction to the Special Section

Registered Reports (RRs) are an emerging format for publishing empirical journal articles in which the decision to publish an article is based on sound conceptualization, methods, and planned analyses rather than the specific nature of the results. This article introduces the Special Section on Registered Reports in Child Development by describing what RRs are and why they are necessary, outlining the thought process that guided the Special Section, describing key thematic insights across the eight articles included in the collection, and providing recommendations for developmental researchers interested in publishing via the RR format. This article also serves as a formal announcement that RRs will be a standard publishing option at Child Development, effective immediately.