Social-Emotional Learning has become yet another point of contention for education activists on the right, who accuse it of being “Trojan horse” for critical race theory. But research suggests that having schools work on social and emotional development is important for future student success.
A study from the UChicago Consortium of School Research looked at how high school climate and organizational context affect student development and achievement in both the short and long run. The study, authored by researchers from the consortium and Northwestern University (Shanette C. Porter, C. Kirabo Jackson, Sebastian Kiguel, and John Q. Easton), looked at Chicago high schools using measures of success beyond simple Big Standardized Test scores.
Some of the study’s reported findings:
Effective high schools—those that fostered multiple dimensions of student growth—improved students’ short- and long-run trajectories.
In other words, if a school starts focusing on factors beyond getting students ready to get a high score on the state test, students benefit. If the school focuses on students social-emotional development, students benefit. This broader focus increases the chance of graduating and of enrolling in college within two years.
Social-emotional development is tied to healthy adjustment and positive identity formation. This is where some opponents see a problem; for instance, some believe that a positive identity cannot be formed by students who are LGBTQ. Or, as one parent put it, “not everyone deserves respect, empathy, honesty, kindness etc. from my children.”
But the study reports “that relative to schools’ impacts on test scores, schools’ impacts on SED mattered about as much or more for students’ short-run trajectories.” In other words, focusing on social-emotional well-being was as or more useful for students than focusing on tests scores.
Effective high schools had supportive, collaborative, and instructionally ambitious climates
School climate, the study found, predicted school effectiveness. Their measures for climate included effective leaders, collaborative teachers, involved families, supportive environment, and ambitious instruction. Each of those factors predicted school effectiveness by themselves.
They found that their measure of school climate was better predictor of school effectiveness than other measures such as test scores or sites like GreatSchools.
In sum, the study concluded that “when schools foster SED, students are more likely to thrive in high school and beyond.”
This does not necessarily suggest that formal social-emotional learning programs are key; there are many ways (and arguably more effective ones) for schools to foster SED than a formal program. But the study is a reminder that school climate, which is, after all, the nature of the world in which students live for part of each school day, is important—perhaps more important than the Big Standardized Tests that have driven school evaluation and education policy for the last few decades.
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