What Works to Improve Social-Emotional Learning in Conflict and Crisis? Evidence from a Meta-Analysis of Education Interventions in Humanitarian Contexts

• In Event: What Works for Social and Emotional Learning in Crisis

Proposal

Background and Rationale
Over 234 million school-aged children live in contexts of armed conflict, protracted crises, and forced displacement. These children face immense risks to their learning, psychosocial wellbeing, and long-term development. While education in emergencies can provide stability and protection, it is under-resourced, and policy and donor decisions require rigorous evidence of what interventions truly work.
Social and emotional learning (SEL) has emerged as a critical domain, enabling children to build resilience, regulate emotions, strengthen relationships, and sustain learning amid adversity. Yet most existing SEL evidence comes from high-income or stable settings. Little is known about the effectiveness of SEL-related interventions in humanitarian contexts, where instability, poverty, and trauma fundamentally shape children’s development. This study addresses this gap by conducting the first meta-analysis of education interventions on SEL outcomes in conflict and crisis settings.
Objectives
This meta-analysis sought to:
1. Quantify the overall effects of education interventions on SEL outcomes for school-aged children (6–18) in conflict and crisis contexts.
2. Identify which types of interventions show the most consistent positive effects.
3. Explore variation in impacts across SEL domains using the Harvard EASEL/INEE PSS-SEL taxonomy.
4. Assess the strength of the evidence base and identify key measurement and implementation gaps.
Methods
We systematically identified 16 rigorous evaluations of 10 education interventions meeting inclusion criteria: experimental or quasi-experimental design, education-focused, conducted in crisis-affected settings, and reporting SEL outcomes. Data were extracted on sample sizes, effect sizes, standard errors, and intervention characteristics.
Meta-analytic synthesis used a random-effects inverse-variance model, generating pooled effect sizes while accounting for heterogeneity. SEL outcomes were recoded into six domains (Cognitive, Emotional, Social, Values, Perspectives, Identity). Strength of evidence was rated by study quality, replication, and statistical significance.
Findings
Overall Impact
Across 16 studies, education interventions produced a small but statistically significant average effect on SEL outcomes (0.06 SD, p < .001). This aligns with effect sizes typical of education interventions in low-resource contexts, suggesting that even modest improvements can matter when scaled.
By Intervention Type
• Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS): Moderate, positive effects (0.16 SD). Some studies improved emotional regulation and prosocial skills; others yielded null or gender-specific impacts.
• Accelerated Learning Programs (ALPs) infused with SEL: Moderate evidence of medium effects (0.10 SD), especially on emotional outcomes.
• Academic Support through EdTech: Small but significant positive effects on perspectives outcomes (perseverance, ambition, hope).
• Remedial Lessons with SEL: Mixed findings. Individually, several studies showed null SEL impacts; pooled results suggest small, positive effects.
• SEL Programming: Weak evidence; effects were small and inconsistent. Explicit curricula often did not yield significant gains.
• Teacher Professional Development (Coaching): Weak, with negative impacts in one RCT—possibly due to poor coach preparation and lack of contextual fit.
• Peace Education: One quasi-experimental study in Israel showed impacts on beliefs, but evidence too limited for meta-analysis.
By SEL Domain
• Emotional: The most consistent gains (0.07 SD, p = .001), including empathy and emotion regulation.
• Social and Cognitive: Positive but non-significant, with high variability (social) or small magnitudes (cognitive).
• Perspectives: Larger effect sizes (0.19 SD) on perseverance and hope, but results were imprecise and inconsistent.
• Values and Identity: No studies reported standardized impact estimates—revealing major gaps.
Contribution to Knowledge
This is the first meta-analysis to synthesize SEL impacts of education interventions across diverse humanitarian contexts. Findings advance understanding by:
• Showing that even in highly adverse settings, interventions can improve SEL—particularly emotional skills.
• Highlighting intervention types with the most promise (MHPSS, ALPs, EdTech).
• Revealing weak or inconsistent effects for remedial lessons and SEL curricula, pointing to implementation and contextualization challenges.
• Identifying significant evidence gaps in values and identity domains.
Implications for Research, Policy, and Practice
The study underscores the need for:
• Contextual adaptation: SEL programs adapted from high-income contexts often underperform in humanitarian settings. Programs must resonate with children’s cultural and developmental realities.
• Capacity building: Implementation quality matters. Weak teacher preparation undermined SEL outcomes in some studies.
• Coherence in measurement: The field must converge on shared frameworks and culturally valid tools (e.g., PSS-SEL Toolbox, INEE/Harvard EASEL) to ensure comparability.
• Investment in longitudinal and domain-specific measurement: Emotional gains are clearest, but long-term trajectories and domains like values and identity remain unexamined.
• Strategic scaling: Even modest effects (0.06 SD) can have meaningful implications when interventions reach millions of crisis-affected children.
Conclusion
Despite growing attention to SEL in education in emergencies, this evidence base remains fragmented and uneven. The meta-analysis finds modest but significant improvements overall, with emotional competencies showing the most consistent gains. However, many interventions—particularly remedial lessons and explicit SEL curricula—fail to deliver reliable impacts, underscoring the importance of contextualization, implementation quality, and measurement coherence.
Based on the findings, we call for renewed investment in co-designed, developmentally appropriate, contextually grounded SEL interventions, alongside rigorous and harmonized measurement systems. Only then can policymakers and practitioners reliably answer what works, for whom, and under what conditions—to protect and strengthen the social-emotional development of children living through crisis.

Authors

• Silvia Diazgranados, International Rescue Committee

• Bernard Thuo