Social and emotional development is an effective way schools can promote a positive learning environment and support students to attain non-academic or personal development skills. Similar to academics, this process takes time with repeated opportunities to practice new learning across settings.
Definition
There are many different terms and phrases used to describe social and emotional development or social-emotional learning (SEL) including 21st century skills, life skills, character development, foundational skills, executive functioning skills, teaching the whole learner, etc. The Comprehensive Center Network (2023) published a resource with a comprehensive list of these variations in language about SEL.
Though SEL is sometimes promoted as a new practice, teachers have been supporting students to acquire these types of cocurricular skills since our education system began.
The Collaborative for Academic and Social Emotional Learning (CASEL Framework, 2024) identifies five core SEL competencies or skills for students and adults:
- Responsible Decision Making
- Self-Management
- Self-Awareness
- Relationship Skills
- Social Awareness
Social Emotional Learning at school looks like a supportive classroom environment, integration of SEL within academic instruction, and explicit social-emotional skills instruction. Refer to the Guide to Schoolwide SEL for more actionable strategies and resources (CASEL, 2024).
Additional Resources and Tools
Below are additional resources and tools that may be helpful whether schools and districts are just starting out or are advanced on their SEL journey.
Habits of Mind are dispositions or thinking behaviors that are desirable attributes for learning and living productively in a complex world. Several VT schools include measures of Habits of Mind on their student progress reports.
Academic Mindsets are beliefs or ways of perceiving oneself in relation to learning, and they lay the groundwork for deep academic, social and emotional learning. Refer to Fostering Academic Mindsets (CASEL, 2024) for considerations for integrating SEL within academic instruction.
Educational Neuroscience is an interdisciplinary research field that seeks to translate research findings on neural mechanisms of learning to educational practice and policy and to understand the effects of education on the brain. For an introduction to this research read the article, “Belonging, Learning, and the Brain” (Psychology Today, 2023). Refer to the Learning and the Brain for additional resources about the science of learning.
In the Guide to Schoolwide SEL, CASEL published ten Indicators of Schoolwide SEL. Refer to the CASEL District Resource Center including resources and tools for system-wide SEL initiatives.
To examine SEL skills across frameworks, Harvard University has developed a tool to explore these connections at Explore SEL.
A Snapshot of SEL Educational Research
Research increasingly suggests that social and emotional learning matters a great deal for important life outcomes like success in school, college entry and completion, and later earnings.
The Education Collaboratory at Yale refers to inclusive and equitable SEL as the science of learning and social and emotional development. Yale Child Study Center published Research Finds Social and Emotional Learning Produces Significant Benefits for Students (July 2023) substantiating that academic performance, well-being, and perceptions of school safety all improved from SEL programming.
The Wallace Foundation has published prominent research about the benefits of SEL including Find Out How to Build Social and Emotional Learning Skills, (November 2022).
American Institutes for Research describe how healthy schools and supportive school environments provide connection, support, engagement, and physical and emotional safety, as well as access to social capital for students. Read The Intersection of School Climate and Social and Emotional Development (February 2017) report for more information.