The Role of The Leader in Me in the Social-Emotional Development of Elementary Students

• In Event: Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: Enhancing Teacher Skills and School Culture for Social Emotional Learning

Abstract

The Leader in Me is an approach to fostering social and emotional learning that has been adopted by more than two thousand schools, but that has been given little empirical attention. Grounded in seven “habits,” The Leader in Me supports schools in establishing a unifying school culture and in empowering students to take on leadership roles in their school, with the goal of increasing student voice and self-efficacy. Using a mixed-methods approach, we examine the social-emotional development of elementary school students attending seven public elementary schools that began implementation of The Leader in Me in 2014-15 to that of their peers at seven structurally and demographically similar control schools within the same school districts.

Authors

• Madora Soutter, Boston University

• Scott Clifford Seider, Boston University

• Saira Malhotra, Boston University