1-174 - Short- and long-term impacts of classroom-based social-emotional learning interventions during early schooling

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Recent national school reform has focused primarily on improving academic outcomes via accountability systems designed to hold schools to high standards and instructional improvement. This has largely crowded out attention to children’s social and emotional well-being and competencies in schools (Aber, Brown et al., 2011). However, a recent meta-analysis of over 200 studies of social-emotional learning (SEL) initiatives concluded that school-based SEL interventions can positively impact emotional, behavioral, and academic outcomes. Current interventions are now targeting teachers and classrooms as key social and behavioral “contexts” for improving children’s social-emotional and cognitive development (Jones, Brown, & Aber, 2008).
This symposium brings together three studies showcasing school-based interventions that target teachers and classrooms as key “levers” for improving children’s social-emotional learning skills across developmental periods from preschool to fifth grade. The first paper presents findings from an evaluation of Preschool RULER in which teachers learn to recognize, understand, label, express, and regulate emotions and then model and teach these SEL skills to children. The second paper presents quasi-experimental findings from an evaluation of 4Rs+MTP, an integrated SEL and literacy program in upper elementary classrooms that is paired with video-based coaching. The third paper will report long-term findings from an RCT of the Chicago School Readiness Project, a mental health consultation model aimed at building teachers’ skills in effective classroom and relationship management. Our discussant, a national expert in the field of SEL and evidence-based, setting-level SEL interventions during early schooling, will provide an integrated summary of implications for research and practice.

Sub Unit

• Education, Schooling

Chair

• Jason Downer, University of Virginia

Discussant

• Joshua L Brown, Fordham University

Individual Presentations

• Improving children’s social and emotional skills with Preschool RULER - Presenting Author: Shauna L Tominey, Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence; Craig S. Bailey, Yale Univ; Susan E Rivers, Yale University; Elisabeth C O''Bryon, Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence; Svea G. Olsen, Yale; Virginia D Peisch, University of Vermont; Sherri Widen, Yale; Marc A Brackett, Yale

• Examining the Impacts of 4Rs+MTP on Children’s Social-Emotional, Behavioral and Academic Competence in Urban Elementary Schools - Presenting Author: Jason Downer, University of Virginia; Joshua L Brown, Fordham University; Andres Molano, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia.; Megan Stuhlman, University of Virginia; Bridget K. Hamre, University of Virginia; Stephanie M Jones, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Hannah R. Wertz, Fordham University; Christina L. Rucinski, Fordham University

• Long term effects of the Chicago School Readiness Project on children’s social-emotional and behavioral adjustment - Presenting Author: Stephanie M Jones, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Dana Charles McCoy, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Lauren Y Hay, Harvard Graduate School of Education; Cybele Raver, New York University