How does social and emotional learning affect the performance of students? Evidence from Brazil

• In Event: Educational Policies in a Digital Age: Comparative Views from Latin America

Proposal

According to the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), the definition of social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process of understanding and managing emotions, with empathy and responsible decision-making. For the promotion of SEL, the development of the following sets of five skills is essential: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making (CASEL, 2024). This subject has increased the interest of researchers since the second half of the 20th century showing that these variables have compelling outcomes on wellbeing in childhood (Mondi et al. 2021).

In Brazil, the new guidelines for the common national curriculum base (Base Nacional Comum Curricular – BNCC) stated that until 2020 all schools must have adopted socio-emotional skills in the curriculum. However, with many Brazilian children living in conditions of social vulnerability, the implementation of SEL becomes important to minimizing this negative impact in generations to come (Colagrossi and Vassimon 2017). In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact in the learning environment for Brazilian students. In a recent study using data from Goiás State, the proficiency levels in mathematics and Portuguese declined the equivalent of more than two school years (Lichand et al. 2022). The Lichand et al study shows that socio-emotional skills were neglected during the pandemic and that this probably inflated these learning losses. This suggests that SEL is complementary to effective learning as well as curricular content.

The study therefore hypothesizes that in those localities (Brazilian states) with well-established SEL programs, student learning gains, as measured by national and international tests, tend to be greater, than in localities with newer or no SEL programs. This analysis is only suggestive, and does not pretend to be causal, since it involves relatively few observations (27), and, in addition, the longitudinal estimates are likely to be confounded by the event of the COVID-19 epidemic, which had large impact in Brazil. The study will discuss these confounding effects as part of its analysis of SEL/learning gains correlations.

Specifically, the study compares empirically the relation between achievements in core curriculum components (proficiency in literacy and mathematic) and the introduction of SEL in various Brazilian states. Good data exist for SEL policies in the 27 Brazilian states and their students’ performance on Brazil's Basic Education Assessment System (Sistema de Avaliação da Educação Básica – SAEB). The study will attempt to establish that a correlation exists between student performance and the development of socio-emotional skills.

Furthermore, based on the results of the correlational analysis, the research will use qualitative analysis (document analysis and interviews) to analyze how educational policies regarding SEL are crafted in states with similar characteristics to assess whether state policies have influenced the success of SEL.

Author

• Julia Lima da Fonseca