Social Emotional Learning

The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) defines Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) as the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.

SEL advances educational equity and excellence through authentic school-family-community partnerships to establish learning environments and experiences that feature trusting and collaborative relationships, rigorous and meaningful curriculum and instruction, and ongoing evaluation. SEL can help address various forms of inequity and empower young people and adults to co-create thriving schools and contribute to safe, healthy, and just communities.

Learn more about The Fundamentals of SEL on the CASEL Website

The increased attention that schools have placed on SEL in recent years is the result of the accumulating evidence that a child’s academic performance is deeply related to their social-emotional competence and wellness. For example, strong social-emotional skills are related to:

• Higher levels of academic performance (e.g., grades)

• Higher levels of educational attainment (e.g., enrollment in post-secondary institutions),

• Increased attendance, and

• Higher levels of academic engagement (e.g., on-task behavior)

It is well understood that feelings and stress impact and influence our ability to concentrate, think, cooperate, communicate, and work through challenges. For example, strong negative feelings (e.g., feeling sad), high levels of anxiety, and high levels of stress interfere with the cognitive processes involved in learning, which makes academic learning and academic engagement challenging.  As a result, if a student is experiencing strong negative feelings, high levels of anxiety, and/or high levels of stress in the classroom, their ability to benefit from instruction will be compromised.

Given these findings, SEL skills can be thought of as “academic-enablers,” or skills that allow students to more consistently and effectively engage, participate, and benefit from classroom instruction.

Beyond academic functioning, students with strong social-emotional skills also report stronger and more healthy interpersonal relationships, higher levels of subjective well-being, fewer mental health symptoms (e.g., anxiety and depression), and reduced engagement in risk-taking behavior (e.g., substance use).

From a community perspective, evidence from Columbia University’s Center for Cost-Benefit Analysis found that for every $1 spent on SEL programming, the return on investment is $11 in long-term benefits to students, schools, and communities.

Investing time and resources into SEL is not at the sacrifice of high-quality education, but a fundamental and necessary condition in achieving it.