Accelerating Student Academic Achievement and Well-Being Through Social and Emotional Learning: Opportunities and Challenges

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

It is no secret that the US education system is at an inflection point; record low test scores concurrent with record high rates of absenteeism, suicidality, and mental health concerns among youth, in the context of a polarized socio-political climate driving education culture wars. The explicit instruction of social and emotional learning (SEL) and its possibility and promise for accelerating student academic achievement and well-being is caught in the current politicization, and it is unclear who is benefiting and who is being left behind. This symposium addresses these tensions explicitly by discussing new science and analyses at the forefront of the national discourse of SEL; what we know empirically about student academic achievement, mental health, and evidence access in SEL.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Social and Emotional Learning

Chair

• Christina Cipriano, Yale University

Papers

• The Effects of Universal Social and Emotional Learning on Students’ Academic Achievement: A Meta-analytic Review - Cheyeon Ha, Yale University; Michael McCarthy, Yale Child Study Center; Michael Strambler, Yale School of Medicine; Christina Cipriano, Yale University

• The Adverse Effects of Social and Emotional Learning - Michael Strambler, Yale School of Medicine; Christina Cipriano, Yale University

• Developing a Roadmap for Navigating SEL Evidence in a Polarized Political Climate - Michael McCarthy, Yale Child Study Center; Eliya Ahmad, Yale University; Christina Cipriano, Yale University

Discussant

• Christina Cipriano, Yale University