Do SEL programs work?

Research shows that SEL has a positive impact on student emotional well-being and academic performance. Educators should always be proactive in communicating the benefits of SEL and why it is a priority in their classrooms.

How effective are SEL programs?

From an academic standpoint, students who participated in SEL programs saw an 11 percentile increase in their overall grades and better attendance.

What are the disadvantages of SEL?

It can perpetuate a victim mentality. Some SEL programs focus heavily on identifying and coping with emotions like anxiety, fear, and sadness. While it's important to address these issues, there's a risk that children could become too focused on their negative emotions and begin to see themselves as victims.

Why are parents against SEL in schools?

Those accusations have surfaced during school board meetings, within parent-teacher associations, and during routine parent-teacher conferences, said Hughes. Parents express fears that SEL is a slippery slope—or even an indoctrination tool—to teach kids about racial inequality, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

Why do high school SEL programs feel lame?

The big problem, researchers and practitioners say, is that too much of what constitutes SEL learning feels patronizing to teenagers and fails to address their core psychological needs and motivations: developing an identity and sense of agency, being recognized and respected by peers, finding ways to excel, and ...

Social-Emotional Learning: What Is SEL and Why SEL Matters

What is controversial about SEL?

Critics of social-emotional learning, like Parents Defending Education, a group tracking what it says is “liberal indoctrination,” say the programs focus too much on children's identities. It shouldn't matter what a child's race or gender is, these parent groups say.

Why do SEL programs fail?

So SEL is rushed, shortened, or even skipped. Note to administrators: you cannot put one more thing on a teacher's plate without at the same time taking something off. The less obvious but perhaps most important reason that SEL programs fail is that they conflict with the SEL program the school already has.

Does SEL teach gender identity?

Through self-reflection and social awareness, SEL helps teach skills needed to connect across race, class, culture, language, gender identity, sexual orientation, learning needs and age.

Can you opt out of social emotional learning?

Parents have the right to ask to see lessons and material, including copies of the SEL surveys, prior to instruction. Under Federal Law, parents do have the right to opt their students out of surveys. The Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, commonly referred to as PPRA, gives parents this right.

What does research say about SEL in the classroom?

Research shows that SEL has a positive impact on student emotional well-being and academic performance. Educators should always be proactive in communicating the benefits of SEL and why it is a priority in their classrooms.

Is SEL a hidden curriculum?

And, because we can also learn unhealthy social and emotional skills and mindsets—like racism, aggression, and helplessness—from our surroundings, it's especially important for educators to bring awareness and intentionality to the hidden SEL curriculum.

Do SEL skills need to be explicitly taught?

These abilities are captured in five social and emotional competencies: cooperation, assertiveness, responsibility, empathy, and self-control (C.A.R.E.S.). The skills that make up these competencies can and should be explicitly taught in the same way that any academic or life skill is taught.

What are negative effects of a low social-emotional learning?

Unfortunately, many students lack social-emotional competencies and become less con- nected to school as they progress from elementary to middle to high school, and this lack of connection negatively affects their academic performance, behavior, and health (Blum & Libbey, 2004).

What percentage of schools use SEL?

More than 90 percent of schools and districts in the U.S. report a focus on developing students' SEL skills (Duchesneau, 2020). There is growing consensus that implementing SEL programs well by definition includes inclusive, collaborative approaches that value culture and consider context.

How common is SEL in schools?

Key Findings

Seventy-six percent of principals and 53 percent of teachers nationally reported that their schools used a social and emotional learning (SEL) program or SEL curriculum materials in the 2021–2022 school year.

What is the best SEL curriculum?

Can SEL reduce school violence?

Research shows that preventative measures focused on developing social and emotional competencies and supportive learning climates can foster emotional safety and help reduce violence. By cultivating skills like self-regulation and problem-solving, SEL promotes mental wellness and reduces risky behaviors.

Who needs social-emotional learning?

SEL can help all young people and adults thrive personally and academically, develop and maintain positive relationships, become lifelong learners, and contribute to a more caring, just world. We define social and emotional learning (SEL) as an integral part of education and human development.

Does social-emotional learning help mental health?

Social and emotional learning helps to support student mental health needs by fostering a sense of safety and security, building positive relationships with others, and providing equitable support to learning.

At what age is gender identity taught?

Gender identity typically develops in stages: Around age two: Children become conscious of the physical differences between boys and girls. Before their third birthday: Most children can easily label themselves as either a boy or a girl. By age four: Most children have a stable sense of their gender identity.

Why is SEL so important in elementary school?

Students and Schools. Social-emotional learning (SEL) helps improve kids' academic performance, curtail bullying, reduce dropout rates, and build character. Well-implemented SEL programs positively affect students' success in school.

How is SEL culturally relevant?

Culturally responsive and sustaining SEL refers to practices that actively draw upon (responsive) and explicitly support (sustaining) students' diverse backgrounds, identities, strengths, and challenges as a strategy to deepen learning.

Why social emotional learning isn t enough to help kids?

SEL ignores spiritual, physical, and societal well-being. It doesn't encourage students to learn outdoors in nature and become stewards of the environment. It has nothing to say about physical fitness. Nor does it address young people's spiritual hunger to feel part of something greater than themselves.

What are the barriers to social emotional learning?

A recent report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) identifies five of these barriers: poverty, exclusionary discipline practices and policies in school, lack of trauma-informed practices, implicit bias and educator stress and burnout.

How do I choose a SEL program?