Schools are considered one of the primary settings in which prevention and intervention initiatives can be implemented successfully, reaching a large number of young people. Especially when promoting social and emotional learning (SEL), many adolescents benefit from universal programs implemented in the school context. This chapter embeds…

Evidence suggests that there is a correlation between the violent images and stories we view through media and the effects those stories have on children and young adults, namely the suppression of compassion. With so much emphasis on academic standards, sometimes social emotional skills are grossly neglected. Students are being taught how to…

Early childhood teachers can be relaxed and peaceful as they create playful and harmonious classrooms, even if they work in stressful contexts. However, the stressors faced by teachers may lead to negative consequences that can undermine their ability to sustain personal health and positive interactions. In the absence of positive coping…

Despite credible research to support a constructivist-based approach in early childhood programs, policymakers continued to push for a more academic-based philosophy in an effort to reach standardized testing goals. Reggio Emilia, a constructivist-based early childhood philosophy that originated in Northern Italy, has been shown to be an excellent…

Since 1997, the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) has been a major source of information on the Head Start program and the preschool children ages 3 to 5 who attend the program. As part of its management of Head Start, the federal government divides Head Start programs into 12 regions. Regions XI and XII are not based on…

There is broad consensus across academic disciplines that access to same-race/ethnicity teachers is a critical resource for supporting the educational experiences and outcomes of Black, Hispanic, and other students of color. While theoretical and qualitative lines of inquiry further describe a set of teacher mindsets and practices aligned to…

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) has often been an umbrella term for a wide range of competencies, including emotional processes, social and interpersonal skills, and cognitive regulation (Jones, Bouffard, & Weissbourd, 2013). We used the Borich (1980) needs assessment model to assess the professional development needs of Texas agricultural…

Research about infants' capacity to communicate using cries, smiles and sophisticated emotional strategies to connect with adults in their lives has predominantly emerged from the field of developmental psychology, with relatively limited attention to how babies enact such communicative practices with key adults in naturalistic settings. This…

Scaling in educational settings has tended to focus on replication of external programs with less focus on the nature of adaptation. In this article, we explore the scaling of Personalization for Academic and Social-emotional Learning (PASL), a systemic high school reform effort that was intentionally identified, developed, and implemented with…

Writing as soul work refers to the active engagement of students in transformative writing activities in a group setting with the aim to enable students to develop new, more empowering narratives. This article explains how soul work through writing can be used to foster career adaptability, expressed in the form of increased awareness and…

This article focuses on the effects of an arts-based intervention for young people deemed at risk of school exclusion because of social, emotional and behavioural difficulties. Using a range of qualitative methods, including observations and interviews, the study explored from the perspective of 11 young people (aged 11-16) the potential for…

This report examines the effect of a primary component of restorative justice (RJ) programming in one community-based organization (CBO) on students' behavioral and disciplinary outcomes in four Chicago high schools from 2014 to 2016. It looks at the effect of students' use of RJ programs offered in the CBO's "Peace Room" (PR) on rates…

Developing and articulating clear goals for student social and emotional learning (SEL) involves a number of important steps. This document focuses specifically on the articulation of learning goals (sometimes called "competencies" or "standards" in state and district policy) and suggests a process for those state teams that…

Project based learning (PBL) provides opportunities for teachers and students to create learning spaces that are authentic and relevant. Much of this work is taking place in STEM contexts, with few studies exploring PBL integration in English language arts (ELA) classrooms. In this co-design project, we collaborated with 13 9th grade ELA teachers…

This publication outlines the fundamental principles and process of Strategic School Design. Through years of research and practice around school resource use, we have found that high-performing, high-growth schools are responding to the changing context in education by using people, time, technology, and money in ways that look significantly…