Children with a history of maltreatment and placement into foster care face elevated risks of poor psychosocial outcomes including school failure, substance use, externalizing, and deviant peer association. For children in the general population, school engagement appears to be a promotive factor in preventing negative outcomes. In this study,…

Though we do our best to protect children from life's underbelly, bad things happen. Hurricanes, school shootings, divorce, exploding crime rates, economic downturns, child abuse, and acts of terror have become reality for many. Sadly, students are not immune from the chaos that often results. If a child worries that he is not safe or thinks…

The relations between fathers' and mothers' home literacy involvement at 24 months and children's cognitive and social emotional development in preschool were examined using a large sample of African American and Caucasian families ("N" = 5190) from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B). Hierarchical…

This quasi-experimental exploratory study investigated whether a social-emotional learning program, implemented during a 1-year period, could lead to gains in social-emotional competencies and a reduction in internalizing and externalizing problems. Furthermore, it showed which pupils would benefit most from the program. The program was applied to…

Peer influence and social interactions can give rise to spillover effects in which the exposure of one individual may affect outcomes of other individuals. Even if the intervention under study occurs at the group or cluster level as in group-randomized trials, spillover effects can occur when the mediator of interest is measured at a lower level…

The School for Student leadership (SSL) provides a unique educational experience for Australian Year 9 secondary school students at a time when parental expectations may not necessarily be in alignment with student engagement and motivation. Yet there are often concerns amongst both students and their parents about spending time outside…

This study examined the relationship between special health care needs and social-emotional and learning competence in the early years, reporting on two waves of data from the Kindergarten Cohort of "Growing up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children" (LSAC). Six hundred and fifty children were identified through the…

Many educators believe that developing a sense of community in their schools is necessary for having a vibrant and effective learning environment. Sense of community is a complex social construct with many proponents. Socioemotional learning programs purport to help young students develop emotional skills in order to develop intellectually and…

Natalie, a nine-year-old fourth-grade girl who lives with her mother, father, and two older sisters in a small, middle class, suburban community, has some social problems. She often appears to be speaking to the other students the way her older sisters speak to her at home--exerting power in a condescending tone. This article describes a "Red Flag…

Moral intelligence is grounded in emotion and reason. Neuroscientific and clinical research illustrate how early life co-regulation with caregivers influences emotion, cognition, and moral character. Triune ethics theory (Narvaez, 2008) integrates neuroscientific, evolutionary, and developmental findings to explain differences in moral…

The term "EI (emotional intelligence)" was first used in 1990 by Salovey and Mayer. EI involves: (1) the ability to perceive accurately, appraise and express emotion; (2) the ability to access and/or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; (3) the ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge; and (4) the ability to regulate…

The Afterschool Alliance, in partnership with MetLife Foundation, is proud to present the third in a series of four issue briefs examining critical issues facing middle school youth and the vital role afterschool programs play in addressing these issues. This brief focuses on service-learning opportunities for middle schoolers. Pairing service…

The Pyramid Model is a conceptual framework for organizing practices for promoting young children's social-emotional development and preventing and addressing challenging behavior. The authors describe a coaching approach that is focused on supporting early educators' implementation of the Pyramid Model. The authors provide a description of the…

This study examined the benefits of all-girls adventure programmes from the perspective of adolescent girls. Participants included 361 girls aged 10-17 years from diverse ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds who completed a variety of adventure programmes. Adventure activities included rock climbing, sea kayaking, mountaineering, backpacking,…

Early social-emotional development occurs in the context of parenting, particularly via processes such as maternal emotion socialization and parent-child interactions. Results from structural equation modeling indicated that maternal contingent responsiveness partially mediated the relationship between maternal emotion socialization of toddlers (N…