Mechanisms for change: A theoretical pathway for a school-wide social-emotional learning initiative in an urban middle school.

Introduction: Investment in academic instruction without complementary attention to the social-emotional environment of students may lead to a failure of both. The current study evaluates a proposed mechanism for change, whereby academic achievement occurs as a result of the social-emotional learning environment impacting behavioral (discipline) outcomes. Methods: We tested the hypothesized model during each year of a 3-year intervention to determine whether the relations among these constructs held potential as a pathway for targeted improvement. Results: Path analysis for each year demonstrated excellent fit [Year 1: χ2 (19) = 76.16, CFI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.05,TLI = 0.98; Year 2: χ2 (19) = 70.68, CFI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.048, TLI = 0.98; Year 3: χ2 (19) = 66.59, CFI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.05, TLI = 0.98] supporting the theoretical model for change. For each year the effect of the SEL Environment construct on discipline was significant, as was the effect of discipline on Academic Performance. Further, the indirect effect of SEL Environment on Academic Performance was significant across all years. Discussion: The consistency of these relationships supports the proposed logic model as a potential mechanism for change and has the potential to guide interventions for whole school improvement.

The impact of school climate in social-normative expectations in low and high SES schools.

This study examined the associations among race/ethnicity, school climate, and social-normative expectations (expectations about peers' future achievement) in high and low socioeconomic status (SES) schools, with a particular focus on school climate as a process that might influence social-normative expectations. Results showed that more positive perceptions of school climate were significantly associated with higher levels of social-normative expectations in both low and high SES settings. Additionally, identifying as Black was negatively associated with social-normative expectations in both high and low SES schools. School climate significantly moderated the negative relationship between race and social-normative expectations in high SES schools; however, there was no moderation in low SES schools. In both high and low SES schools, school climate was a robust predictor of social-normative expectations, highlighting the importance of social-normative expectations as a metric of school climate improvement in both high and low SES schools. In conclusion, policies related to school culture and climate, school improvement, and turnaround should explicitly focus on the connection of racial and ethnic equity, specifically for Black and Latinx students, to reflect the range and reality of students' social-normative expectations.

Exploring social-emotional learning, school climate, and social network analysis.

There is currently limited research on student peer leadership in the social-emotional literature. This paper used exploratory methods of social network analysis to understand the structure of school peer relationships, peer leadership, and school climate. Self-report measures of perceptions of peer leadership and climate were given to students during the 2016-2017 school year. Data collected from a peer leadership survey were used to calculate closeness and indegree centrality values. The results showed that student Ambassadors have higher peer nominated leadership scores compared to non-Ambassador controls and the rest of the school. Additionally, Ambassadors did not demonstrate a change in centrality scores, non-Ambassador students increased in centrality scores, and school climate was not correlated with the leadership centrality score. Results suggest that influence spreads, and that good leadership may be emulated among students, leading to a diffusion effect. This supports the need for good leaders in schools. Additionally, climate may not be associated with leadership centrality scores due to the length of the intervention. Future studies should look toward behavioral data to unravel what comprises positive and negative influences in Social-Emotional and Character Development interventions.

Life satisfaction in emerging adults: The role of emotional and spiritual intelligences.

Objectives. The present research had two main objectives. The first was to examine the impact of emotional intelligence and aspects of spiritual intelligence on life satisfaction among emerging adults in high-income countries. The second objective was to study the interactions between the variables. Methods. First, we used predictive analysis to examine the impact of emotional and spiritual intelligences on life satisfaction beyond that accounted for by gender and by anxiety and depression. Second, we studied the interactions between the variables measured by means of decision-tree analysis. Results. Personal meaning production emerged as the primary determining factor of life satisfaction. In addition, the participants with both personal meaning production and emotional intelligence above a certain threshold had the highest average scores on life satisfaction. Conclusions. The results suggest that further research on emerging adults should investigate the critical issue of identity development, specifically regarding the impact of spiritual and emotional intelligence.

Student Self-Reported Positive Purpose Over Two Years in Urban Middle Schools.

We used Developmental Systems Theory as a framework for understanding the role of contextual factors in the development of purpose in urban adolescents. The sample included primarily low-socioeconomic students of color attending urban middle schools (n = 2,629; 10-16 years of age). Longitudinal data were collected at four time points across two years. We used hierarchical linear modeling to model change in purpose. On average, purpose declined over time. We also identified several predictors of intercept and slope. For example, Black youth had a higher average purpose intercept, as well as a steeper average decline than other racial/ethnic groups. Females demonstrated a higher average purpose intercept than males, but this effect disappeared when academic achievement was added to the model.

The increasing impact of socioeconomics and race on standardized academic test scores across elementary, middle, and high school.

For students and schools, the current policy is to measure success via standardized testing. Yet the immutable factors of socioeconomic status (SES) and race have, consistently, been implicated in fostering an achievement gap. The current study explores, at the school-level, the impact of these factors on test scores. Percentage of students proficient for Language and Math was analyzed from 452 schools across the state of New Jersey. By high school, 52% of the variance in Language and 59% in Math test scores can be accounted for by SES and racial factors. At this level, a 1% increase in school minority population corresponds to a 0.19 decrease in percent Language proficient and 0.33 decrease for Math. These results have significant implications as they suggest that school-level interventions to improve academic achievement scores will be stymied by socioeconomic and racial factors and efforts to improve the achievement gap via testing have largely measured it.

Emotional Awareness: A Transdiagnostic Predictor of Depression and Anxiety for Children and Adolescents.

Research increasingly suggests that low emotional awareness may be associated with symptoms of depression and anxiety among children and adolescents. However, because most studies have been cross-sectional, it has remained unclear whether low emotional awareness predicts subsequent internalizing symptoms. The current study used longitudinal data to examine the role of emotional awareness as a transdiagnostic predictor of subsequent symptoms of depression and anxiety. Participants were 204 youth (86 boys and 118 girls) ages 7-16 who completed self-report measures of emotional awareness, depressive symptoms, and anxiety symptoms at baseline, as well as measures of depression and anxiety symptoms every 3 months for a year. Results from hierarchical mixed effects modeling indicated that low baseline emotional awareness predicted both depressive and anxiety symptoms across a 1-year period. These findings suggest that emotional awareness may constitute a transdiagnostic factor, predicting symptoms of both depression and anxiety, and that emotional awareness training may be a beneficial component of treatment and prevention programs for youth depression and anxiety.

School violence, adjustment, and the influence of hope on low-income, African American youth.

The current study investigated the prevalence and impact of exposure to school violence using a cross-sectional design with a sample of 132 low-income, African American fifth graders (mean age = 10.20). Additionally, hope was examined in relation to adjustment and as a potential resilience factor in the context of school violence. Students completed self-report measures for exposure to school violence frequencies, self-concept, and hope. Teachers completed a teacher-rated survey assessing levels of problem behaviors, social skills, and academic competence. Results indicated that the majority of youth had been personally victimized or witnessed violence during a 3-month period. Exposure to school violence was positively associated with problem behaviors, and negatively associated with social skills, self-concept, and academic competence; hope was inversely related to externalizing behaviors and positively related to self-concept. Hope buffered the effects of personal victimization and witnessing violence on self-concept. Gender differences were observed for a number of the analyses. The implications of both the prevalence and impact of exposure to school violence, as well as the moderating effects of hope, are discussed.

Dosage effects of a preventive social-emotional learning intervention on achievement loss associated with middle school transition.

A number of studies have documented a normative decline in academic achievement across the transition from elementary school to middle or junior high school. The current study examined the effectiveness of varying levels of a social-emotional learning intervention, Talking with TJ, in limiting achievement loss across transition. Data were gathered on 154 students during their fifth and sixth grade years in an urban, low socio-economic school district. Students participated in the Talking with TJ program over their fifth grade years, and curriculum fidelity in individual classrooms was evaluated. Changes in grade point average were assessed across the middle school transition. Overall, students showed a significant decline in GPA across the transition. Students in classrooms where higher dosages of intervention were delivered showed significantly smaller drops in GPA across transition than did students in lower dosage classrooms. Data on differential program effectiveness among demographic groups and along varying levels of baseline emotional intelligence also are presented. Editors' Strategic Implications: The authors present promising findings for a school transition program, link dosage to effects, and raise interesting theoretical questions about the relationships between social-emotional learning and academic growth and achievement.

How expressions of forgiveness, purpose, and religiosity relate to emotional intelligence and self-concept in urban fifth-grade students.

This study investigated how the tendency to express forgiveness, purpose, and religiosity in a free-response essay relates to emotional intelligence and self-concept in 89 5th-graders (mean age = 10.84 years) from an urban public school district in New Jersey. Readers coded essays for expressions of forgiveness, purpose, and religiosity using originally developed rubrics. These data were compared with self-reports on scales of emotional intelligence and self-concept. It was hypothesized that expressions of the predictor variables would correlate positively with emotional intelligence and self-concept. In contrast to expressions of purpose, which were common among students, expressions of forgiveness and religiosity were infrequent. Furthermore, forgiveness was not significantly related to either criterion variable; purpose was positively related to self-concept (but not to emotional intelligence); and religiosity was negatively related to emotional intelligence (but not to self-concept). Correlational analyses by gender revealed a possible trend toward more robust relationships being observed among females than males; however, the differences between the correlation coefficients observed among males and females failed to reach statistical significance. Several of the study's unanticipated findings suggest the need for further empirical work investigating the psychological correlates of these constructs in children.

Enhancing school-based prevention and youth development through coordinated social, emotional, and academic learning.

A comprehensive mission for schools is to educate students to be knowledgeable, responsible, socially skilled, healthy, caring, and contributing citizens. This mission is supported by the growing number of school-based prevention and youth development programs. Yet, the current impact of these programs is limited because of insufficient coordination with other components of school operations and inattention to implementation and evaluation factors necessary for strong program impact and sustainability. Widespread implementation of beneficial prevention programming requires further development of research-based, comprehensive school reform models that improve social, health, and academic outcomes; educational policies that demand accountability for fostering children's full development; professional development that prepares and supports educators to implement programs effectively; and systematic monitoring and evaluation to guide school improvement.