Preparing youth to thrive: Promising practices in social and emotional learning
Abstract
The guidebook describes SEL standards and organizational and curriculum features for a set of eight exemplary SEL programs.
... Specifically, daily activities should give young people space to process their emotions, share their experiences, listen to the experiences of others, work together in teams, solve problems, and reflect on the outcomes of their decisions. 11 Staff must find the right balance between giving participants autonomy and, through clear and consistent rules and expectations, setting limits on their behavior. Depending on their age and how long they participate in the program, young people may also benefit from increasing opportunities to help set rules and expectations themselves. ...
After-school programs offer young people opportunities for self-expression, exploring their talents, and forming relationships with supportive adults. That is, after-school programs promote young people’s social and emotional learning (SEL) skills-whether the programs use that term or not. Despite these programs’ potential, Noelle Hurd and Nancy Deutsch write, they have yet to make a big impact on the field of SEL. One reason is that studying them poses many problems for researchers-for example, attendance isn’t mandatory, meaning that it can be hard to separate a program’s effects from young people’s personal characteristics that led them to choose the program in the first place. Still, research shows that after-school programs can promote many desirable SEL outcomes, and Hurd and Deutsch outline the factors that make high-quality programs stand out. How could policy help after-school programs promote SEL more effectively? First, positive youth-staff relationships are crucial to effective programs, and competent adult staff are the linchpin of effective after-school programs targeting SEL outcomes. Yet the after-school work force is poorly paid, and turnover is high. Hurd and Deutsch suggest several ways to professionalize after-school work-for example, by boosting professional development and creating more opportunities for career advancement. Second, as schools have become more focused on standardized test scores, funders and policymakers have pushed after-school programs, too, to demonstrate their academic impact. Hurd and Deutsch write that this approach is misguided: overemphasizing academic outcomes leads to neglect of SEL outcomes that can help young people become productive and engaged citizens. They argue for expanding the criteria used to determine whether after-school programs are effective to include SEL. More broadly, they write, high-stakes evaluations create a disincentive for programs to undertake the difficult work of assessing and improving their own practices. A better approach to evaluation would focus less on whether programs “work” and instead seek ways to make them work better.
Organized youth programs provide a context where adolescents experience strong emotions and may develop new ways of thinking about and dealing with emotions. The current study examined youth's reports of positive and negative emotions arising during the course of their work in different types of project-based programs; learning about emotions from different sources (e.g., from observing peers, interacting with adult staff, or engaging in self-reflection); and longitudinal associations between emotional experiences and learning. Quantitative data were collected at two time points from 319 youth (57% female; M age = 15.8 years; 33% Latino, 29% Black, 32% White, 6% other) participating in 14 Midwestern programs focused on Leadership, Arts and Performance (Arts), and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). Overall, positive emotions occurred more frequently than negative emotions, but emotional experiences differed based on the focus of the program. There were few significant differences in emotional learning from various sources (self, peers, staff) across the three types of programs. Multiple regression models controlling for prior learning indicated that, consistent with theory, positive emotions predicted subsequent learning about emotions from all sources. In contrast, negative emotions predicted increased learning from peers but decreased learning from self, suggesting that experiencing negative (vs. positive) emotions may lead youth to attend to different sources of information. The study's findings have implications for theory, research, and practice.
The messages youth receive in schools about how they matter as individuals and as members of ethnic-racial groups are influential in constructing their developing ethnic-racial identities (ERI). However, the developing ERI students hold also have a role in shaping their experiences at school. The current study examined the longitudinal and reciprocal association between ERI (exploration and resolution) and school climate (support for cultural pluralism and teacher supportiveness) among 491 Black, Latino, and White middle school youth (Mage = 12.03, SD = 1.05, range: 11–17) in the Midwest. Cross-lagged analyses revealed that greater perceptions of support for cultural pluralism within the school predicted greater exploration and resolution at later time points for all students. Moreover, greater exploration and resolution among White students was predictive of greater perceptions of support for cultural pluralism at the school. Higher quality teacher–student relationships predicted greater engagement in ERI exploration for all youth. The findings highlight the importance of school climate in helping shape ERI among youth attending a culturally diverse school and the role of such youth in shaping the climate at their school.
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