April 2004

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In This Issue:

From the Executive Director’s Desk  

I have the great pleasure in this issue of introducing not one but two new CASEL publications.

The first is our 2003 Annual Report, which you can view on our web site [http://www.casel.org/downloads/CASEL2003AR.pdf]. It documents our many accomplishments in 2003, and it also presents an overview of the work we plan to complete in 2004. Not least among our achievements in 2003 was the publication of Safe and Sound: An Educational Leader’s Guide to Evidence-Based Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) Programs [http://www.casel.org/projects_products/safeandsound.php]. The link to Safe and Sound on CASEL’s web site has been visited over 100,000 times since it was put up. We also printed 15,000 copies, and, now, just a year later, we’re in the process of ordering a second printing. We’re glad so many of you agree that the guide is an important building block in establishing evidence-based SEL programming.

The second book was developed by CASEL staff, members of our Leadership Team, and nationally known researchers. Titled Building Academic Success on Social and Emotional Learning: What Does the Research Say? and edited by Joseph E. Zins, Herbert J. Walberg, Margaret C. Wang, and myself, it has just been published by Teachers College Press. It grew out of a 2000 conference co-sponsored by the Mid-Atlantic Regional Laboratory for Student Success (LSS) at Temple University, a leading CASEL collaborator. The focus of the conference was linkages between social and emotional learning (SEL) and academic achievement—one of the most important topics confronting our field today. The new book’s premise is simple: unless practitioners of SEL can provide scientific evidence linking SEL with academic learning, schools will perceive our efforts as tangential to their central mission. Building Academic Success takes a major step toward presenting that evidence. The result is a rich and diverse body of highly reputable research documenting the positive academic effects of SEL programming. To learn more about the book and to read the first chapter, please read the feature in this issue and go to the links on our web site.

I believe that someday all of us who are working to establish SEL in schools will look back on Building Academic Success as a milestone in the evolution of our field. It’s a book that can strengthen the work you are doing and respond to the skeptics who wonder if SEL is just another “extra.” Far from it! Building Academic Success makes clear that SEL is—and should be—central to the mission and work of effective schools.

—Roger P. Weissberg, Ph.D.

Spotlight on Research  

Culturally Sensitive Approaches to Youth Substance Abuse Prevention 

When prevention programs are not implemented with fidelity, their effectiveness is often diluted. At the same time, research has shown that effective programs mesh well with the concerns and realities of students, which may occasionally require some cultural adaptation. A new study in the March 2004 issue of Prevention Science [http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/1389-4986] finds that teachers in middle schools with predominantly nonwhite populations are more likely to adapt substance use curricula than teachers in “low-minority” schools. Teachers were most likely to make adaptations to meet the needs of their students with respect to youth violence, limited English proficiency, and race/ethnicity.

Use of multiculturally grounded programs may reduce the need for teachers in multicultural settings to adapt them. Program developers at Penn State University and Arizona State University found the “Keepin’ It R.E.A.L” program effectively reduces substance use rates among middle school students by incorporating key values, cultural practices, voices, and faces of Mexican-American, African-American, and European-American ethnic groups. For example, the common drug prevention strategy of learning “refusal” skills may be perceived as disrespectful in Mexican-American culture. The program emphasizes the need to explain “saying no” by giving students detailed reasons for refusing drugs. In addition, the program narratives and accompanying videos are relevant to adolescents in the three targeted ethnic groups. (Prevention Science, December 2003).

Suicide and Friendship Among Adolescents in the U.S.

Suicide rates among adolescents have increased sharply in the past few years, with suicide now the third leading cause of death among 15-24-year-olds. A recent study in the American Journal of Public Health sheds new light on the relationship between adolescent friendship patterns and “suicidality.” The findings attest to the importance of a school’s social-emotional climate. 

Both boys and girls in the study were more likely to have suicidal thoughts if:

  • They engaged in fewer activities with parents;

  • There was a gun in the house;

  • A family member or friend had attempted suicide;

  • They were depressed;

  • They experienced homosexual attraction;

  • They got high or drunk frequently;

  • They had low self-esteem.

Social networks played the most significant role in the suicidality of girls. Girls lacking cohesive friendship groups, including those with few friends and those whose friends were not also friends with each other, were much more likely to consider suicide. Although friendship variables were less important among boys, males who had contemplated suicide were much less likely to attempt suicide if they attended a school with dense friendship networks.

This study can be found at http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/94/1/89.

Seven Principles of Sustainable Leadership

Sustaining programs over time is a major concern of any broad-based school change effort. Sustainability is particularly challenging when rates of teacher and administrative turnover are high and there are major changes in governmental mandates. In the April issue of Educational Leadership, Andy Hargreaves and Dean Fink discuss seven principles of sustainable leadership that will help educational leaders stay on track to accomplish their goals, remain true to their vision, and enact meaningful improvements in education. The seven principles, summarized below, emerged from a detailed study of more than 200 teachers and administrators in eight U.S. and Canadian high schools. The study, funded by the Spencer Foundation, spanned three decades. Its major conclusion: a key force leading to meaningful, long-term change is leadership sustainability.

According to the article, sustainable leadership:

  • Matters: It goes beyond temporary gains in achievement scores to create lasting, meaningful improvements in learning.

  • Lasts: Leaders have to plan for their succession starting with the first day of their appointment. This can be accomplished, for example, by grooming successors to continue important reforms, by keeping successful leaders in schools longer, and by including succession plans in school improvement plans.

  • Spreads: Is distributed throughout a school’s professional community, including a shared educational vision developed jointly by key members of the leadership group.

  • Is Socially Just: Leadership recognizes the effect one school can have on another and considers these effects when making decisions. (For example, taking care not to drain a neighboring school of large numbers of its best teachers or highest-achieving students.)

  • Is Resourceful: Provides time for leaders to network, learn from, and support one another; also, attends to the emotional health of teachers and school leaders. 

  • Promotes Diversity: Cultivates many kinds of excellence in learning and teaching, resists standardization, and promotes pedagogical innovation.

  • Is Activist: Leaders often have to campaign actively against standardized reforms in order to preserve and promote the vision and mission of their schools.

You can read the article at http://www.ascd.org/publications/ed_lead/200404/hargreaves.html. 

More summaries of articles detailing the essential role of leaders in successful and sustained implementation can be found in the January and November issues of CASEL Connections. 

 

Feature: New CASEL Book
Building Academic Success on Social and Emotional Learning:
What Does the Research Say?
(Teachers College Press, 2004)

Educators have long recognized that students learn and develop intellectually in many different ways. In this era of growing pressures to achieve academically and meet the demands of the No Child Left Behind legislation, determining the factors that contribute to success in school has never been more important. Now Teachers College Press has published a new book written and edited by key members of CASEL’s Leadership Team. Titled Building Academic Success on Social and Emotional Learning: What Does the Research Say? and edited by Joseph E. Zins, Roger P. Weissberg, Herbert J. Walberg, and Margaret C. Wang, the book documents the effects of social and emotional learning (SEL) on school performance. Research data supporting the effectiveness of SEL programs in lowering the risk of problems like school violence and youthful drug and alcohol use has been accumulating steadily. According to the Teachers College Press book, another benefit has emerged: social and emotional learning facilitates academic learning.

The book offers scientific evidence and practical examples of how SEL programming can enhance student accomplishments in key areas related to academic achievement. These include building skills linked to cognitive development, motivating students to achieve academically, improving relationships between students and teachers, creating school-family partnerships to help students achieve, increasing students’ self-confidence, and reducing student aggression and absences.

Praising the new book, Howard Gardner, Professor of Cognition and Education at Harvard University, said, “Joseph Zins and his colleagues have assembled an excellent, authoritative collection of the best ideas, programs, and expert advice available in the field of social and emotional learning. This book is both scholarly and practical.”

You can read the first chapter, “The Scientific Base Linking Social and Emotional Learning to School Success,” on CASEL’s web site at http://www.casel.org/downloads/T3053c01.pdf

Table of Contents

Foreword, by Daniel Goleman

PART I

The Foundations of Social and Emotional Learning

  1. The Scientific Base Linking Social and Emotional Learning to School Success (Joseph E. Zins, Michelle R. Bloodworth, Roger P. Weissberg, and Herbert J. Walberg)

  2. The Learner-Centered Psychological Principles: A Framework for Balancing Academic Achievement and Social-Emotional Learning Outcomes (Barbara L. McCombs)

  3. The Three Cs of Promoting Social and Emotional Learning (David W. Johnson and Roger T. Johnson)

  4. Family-School-Peer Relationships: Significance for Social, Emotional, and Academic Learning (Sandra L. Christenson and Lynne H. Havsy)

  5. Toward a Broader Education: Social, Emotional, and Practical Skills (Paulo N. Lopes and Peter Salovey)

  6. Social and Emotional Learning in Teacher Preparation Standards (Jane E. Fleming and Mary Bay)  

PART II

Effective Strategies for Enhancing Academic, Social, and Emotional Outcomes

  1. Strategies to Infuse Social and Emotional Learning into Academics (Maurice J. Elias)  

  2. Social Development and Social and Emotional Learning (J. David Hawkins, Brian H. Smith, and Richard F. Catalano)  

  3. The Resolving Conflict Creatively Program: A School-Based Social and Emotional Learning Program (Joshua L. Brown, Tom Roderick, Linda Lantieri, and J. Lawrence Aber)

  4. The PATHS Curriculum: Theory and Research on Neurocognitive Development and School Success (Mark T. Greenberg, Carol A. Kusché, and Nathaniel Riggs)  

  5. Community in School as Key to Student Growth: Findings from the Child Development Project (Eric Schaps, Victor Battistich, and Daniel Solomon) 

PART III

Recommendations

  1. Recommendations and Conclusions: Implications for Practice, Training, Research, and Policy (Herbert J. Walberg, Joseph E. Zins, and Roger P. Weissberg)  

 

 

Spotlight on Practice

Reducing Teen Pregnancy

Despite recently declining teen pregnancy rates, the United States has the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the industrialized world. Child Trends and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy have recently released two reports describing programs that have demonstrated positive effects on adolescent sexual behavior: A Good Time: After-School Programs to Reduce Teen Pregnancy and No Time to Waste: Programs to Reduce Teen Pregnancy Among Middle School Youth. Both reports include practical information such as program contacts, program costs, and evaluation results. 

You can download or order copies of the two reports from The National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy [https://www.teenpregnancy.org/] 

New Guide Helps African-American Families Cope With Crises (From the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools Prevention Update)

Activity Book for African American Families: Helping Children Cope with Crisis provides information and resources to help African-American parents support their children in times of stress or crisis. Developed by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the National Black Child Development Institute, the activities are designed for families with children ages 12 and under. Among other topics the book contains advice on how parents can make a plan for emergencies, share their faith with their children, and encourage their children to feel hopeful about the future and feel good about themselves. The book is available at http://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/pubs/hccc/helping_children.htm.

SEL Around the Globe

Interest in SEL is growing not just nationally but around the world. Recently several CASEL Leadership Team members have worked to promote SEL abroad. They include Janet Patti in Spain, Linda Lantieri in Costa Rica, and Mark Greenberg through his work with the Dalai Lama. Academics and Social Emotional Learning, written by Maurice Elias and published by the U.N.’s International Bureau of Education in 2003, was sent to ministries of education worldwide. South Africa, reeling from high rates of HIV/AIDS, crime, violence, and substance abuse, has strongly embraced SEL. The December 2003 (Vol 21(4)) issue of the South African journal Perspectives in Education focuses on educating people to be emotionally and socially intelligent. CASEL Leadership Team members Joe Zins, Maurice Elias, and Mark Greenberg wrote one of the articles, “Facilitating Success in School and in Life through Social and Emotional Learning.” An article by Sarah Stewart-Brown and Laurel Edmonds provides a review of instruments used to assess social competence in preschool and primary school settings. Other authors include Daniel Goleman, Peter Salovey, Reuven Bar-On, Jonathan Cohen, Sandra Sandy, and Joshua Freeman.

Professional Development Opportunities

The summer can be an ideal time to deepen your SEL teaching practice or to focus on your own social and emotional growth. Many organizations around the country offer summer institutes and workshops that can help you do just that. An alphabetized listing of professional development organizations along with descriptions their workshops can be found on the CASEL web site at http://www.casel.org/sel_resources/training.php. 

Spotlight on Policy

NCLB Effects on School Prevention Programs

The Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation has received funding to study the effects of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 on drug, alcohol, and violence prevention programs in schools nationwide. The legislation includes several provisions that affect the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Program (SDFS), the primary source of funding for school-based drug, alcohol, tobacco, and violence prevention programs. The study is being funded by the Substance Abuse Policy Research Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. For more information go to PRNewswire.

Sound Bite

Today’s growing emphasis on academic success and school accountability makes SEL programs more relevant—and useful—to schools than ever before. This ground-breaking book belongs on the shelves of all who are interested in giving student essential tools to succeed.—Daniel Goleman, in the Foreword to Building Academic Success on Social and Emotional Learning: What Does the Research Say? (Teachers College Press, 2004)

CASEL Up-Close

CASEL Publishes its 2003 Annual Report

CASEL has just released its 2003 Annual Report. The 16-page illustrated booklet includes a review of CASEL’s activities and accomplishments in 2003, a summary of activities planned for 2004, and a list of major CASEL publications from 2003. You can read the entire report online by going to [http://www.casel.org/about_casel/caselpubs.php].

CASEL Plays a Leading Role in OSDFS Leadership Institute

As part of its work with the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools in the U.S. Department of Education, CASEL planned and organized a Leadership Institute for 50 National Prevention Coordinators on March 24-26, 2004 in Memphis , Tennessee . The participants included drug prevention and school safety coordinators working across the country in elementary, middle, and high schools with significant drug and school safety problems.

The primary focus of the Institute was on ways to implement and sustain evidence-based prevention programming in schools. A major highlight was recent research on the critical role of leadership in successful school-based prevention programming. Another key topic was current issues and advances in assessment of school-based prevention. The participants had an opportunity to analyze their own leadership style and develop personal leadership skills and skills for working effectively with others in their school to build prevention program sustainability. They also learned how to use assessment to build interest in and support for their work, as well as to help improve program implementation.

Presenters included CASEL leaders Mark Greenberg, Janice Jackson, Linda Lantieri, and Janet Patti.
 

What Is CASEL?  

CASEL—the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning—is dedicated to the development of children’s social and emotional competencies and the capacity of schools, parents, and communities to support that development. Based at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), CASEL is working to create a world in which young people will have the academic knowledge and skills they need to achieve their goals and will also be caring, engaged citizens prepared to participate fully in society. CASEL’s mission is to establish integrated, evidence-based social and emotional learning (SEL) from preschool through high school.

What Is SEL?

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process of developing fundamental social and emotional competencies or skills in children and creating a caring and supportive school climate. A large number of school-based programs and practices are designed to do this. Many evidence-based school programs that focus on positive youth development, problem prevention, service-learning, and character education can be considered SEL. They work to develop students’ social and emotional competencies and create ways to nurture and support students. The resources in this e-newsletter cover a wide range of topics under the umbrella of school-based SEL programming.

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Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL)
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