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In the current study, we sought to understand relations among the key intervention targets of social-emotional and character development (SECD) interventions: character virtues, Positive Purpose, and social-emotional learning (SEL). Sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students (n = 1011, ages 11 to 16, M = 12.94, SD = 1.00) from five urban middle schools in the mid-Atlantic US completed self-report surveys containing measures of five supporting character virtues (diligence, gratitude, forgiveness, future-mindedness, and generosity) and Positive Purpose. Teachers rated students' social-emotional strengths. Hierarchical regressions found a constellation of five character virtues was associated with Purpose and SEL, thereby providing empirical support for the framework for SECD interventions. Exploratory analyses found higher student-reported virtues were associated with a steeper increase in teacher ratings of SEL for males and White students, compared to female students and students of color. The current study contributes to both SEL and character education research by demonstrating positive associations among SEL, character, and Positive Purpose in the context of mid-Atlantic US urban middle schools. Future directions for research include examining how these SECD intervention targets and relations among them develop over time, the ability of SECD interventions to cultivate these skills and virtues, and how differences in teacher ratings by student race/ethnicity and sex may occur.

There has been increasing discussion about the importance of building students' social-emotional competencies for their academic and behavioral success (Jones, Brush, Bailey, Brion-Meisels, McIntyre, Kahn, Nelson, & Stickle, 2017). However, the majority of these discussions focus on social-emotional skills (SEL) as a universal intervention, i.e., at Tier 1 within a multi-tiered system of support (Samuels, 2016). The context for multi-tiered interventions is changing, with students who might traditionally be defined as needing Tier 2 services--so-called at-risk students, or students with early signs of behavior or emotional difficulties--being served primarily in the Tier 1, the universal environment of the mainstreamed classroom. Yet, it is clear that learning SEL skills requires more than SEL instruction--it requires an environment in which the skills are prompted, cued, reminded, and reinforced consistently and over multiple years. If that is true for universal, Tier 1 learners, then it will be even more important for students learning in a Tier 2 context (Elias et al., 2015). This article discusses a case example of SEL applied in a coordinated, multi-tiered context with a particular focus on students at Tier 2 and Tier 3, i.e., students with identified difficulties in social-emotional competencies. In this new, integrative multi-tiered context, SEL 2.0--a combination of social-emotional and character development (SECD)--is the preferred strategy to employ (Elias, 2009). This is illustrated through the case discussion.

In these challenging times, it is essential to activate student voice and prepare them for civic engagement and social action. Social-emotional learning strategies integrated into the social studies curriculum help to accomplish just that. Laura Bond, Maurice Elias, and Samuel Nayman describe the STAT program, which enables students to build both social-emotional and citizenship skills that will help them to take action on the issues they care about now and in the future.

Informed by the Social-Emotional and Character Development (SECD) approach to school turnaround, the present study examined the relationship between students' recollection and reflection of their experience in a SECD program and academic achievement and explored the mediating effect of student-teacher relationships. Based on an intervention in an urban New Jersey school district, three data sources were used: program feedback surveys, student self-report surveys that assessed students on key SECD variables, and academic grades. The final sample consisted of 255 youths from two middle schools. Results demonstrated a significant relationship between SECD reflection and academic achievement. Partial mediation also was observed, with an indirect relationship between SECD reflection, student-teacher relationships, and academic achievement. Results of this study imply that positive SECD program reflections and student-teacher relationships can positively, and uniquely, impact academic achievement. Other implications of these findings for future research and practice, as well as the study's strengths and weaknesses that may have contributed to these results, are discussed.

The highest form of virtuous behavior in the Aristotelian virtue ethics approach to character education involves practical wisdom, or "phronesis," which allows an individual to act in the right way about the right things for the right reasons. Here, we use our experiences with social-emotional and character development (SECD) in low-resourced urban middle schools to put forth a Spiral Model of "Phronesis" Development. We aim to contextualize "phronesis" development to reflect the realities of students of color attending low-resourced urban schools and provide a theoretical framework for cultivating "phronesis" and developing curricula in this setting. We include a description of how we have applied this theory to an SECD curriculum currently being taught in urban middle schools (ages 11-14).

A plethora of terms and related programs have been used to describe and teach the behaviors, skills, attitudes and strategies needed to help students develop in both intelligence and moral maturity-character education, socio-emotional learning (SEL), and positive youth development, to name a few. This article provides an overview of the existing terms, definitions, and programs; describes some of the frameworks that have been created in the past to organize them; discusses some more recent developments in the field; and, recommends a model to help bridge the gap between research, policy, and practice.

Critics and supporters have expressed concern that social-emotional learning (SEL) has not been adapted to children suffering from trauma. While SEL has been identified as a mechanism through which trauma-informed schools can be created, this does not make SEL implementation, in and of itself, trauma-informed. Erica Pawlo, Ava Lorenzo, Brian Eichert, and Maurice J. Elias explain why calls for trauma-informed SEL are, in fact, calls for all SEL to be trauma-informed. They discuss how a trauma-informed approach to SEL is related to SEL's emphasis on school climate, the need to build infrastructure for SEL learning, and the role of emotions in SEL instruction.

While educators and policy makers have an intuitive understanding of the influence of socioeconomic factors and race on student achievement, these factors make the current emphasis on standardized test scores as a primary criterion for evaluating schools and teachers indefensible and ineffective. The research presented illustrates the limits of obtaining test score change and the impact of socioeconomic status and race on standardized achievement measures. Intentional efforts at generating a "success" mindset in students by improving school culture and climate and students' social-emotional and character development are viable steps to be taken alongside reductions of socioeconomic inequities. Indeed, these directions become even more important, given the long timeframe that such reductions are likely to require.

Many Latino students miss opportunities to develop their full potential in U.S. schools. Increasing attention is being paid to the malleable, nonacademic, factors that can affect student learning. The current study sought to evaluate the impact of school climate on Language Arts grade for Latino students in a large, low-income, urban middle school. In addition, the novel construct of Social-Normative Expectations, student perceptions of school-wide norms about achievement expectations for their peers, was explored in relation to school climate and academic achievement. The study sample reflected 513 Latino students, Grades 7 and 8. A mediation model found that approximately 30% of the variance in final Language Arts grades was accounted for by the predictors, including control variables (R2 = 0.299). A distinctive mediation effect was also found, whereby the impact of school climate was associated with an approximately 0.6 points lower final grade mediated through the indirect pathway of Social-Normative Expectations (b = -0.064, SE = 0.019, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [-0.104, -0.028]). Implications of these findings are discussed.

Despite the intuitive appeal of purpose as a subject of inquiry and its associations with positive life outcomes, empirical research on adolescent purpose is limited. This exploratory study examined several dimensions of purpose--classification, engagement, and commitment--based on essay and survey responses from a sample of 124 low-SES and ethnically diverse 7th- and 8th-grade students from an urban-based New Jersey public middle school. It was hypothesized that students who indicated having an integrated purpose that touched on and reinforced multiple life domains, along with active engagement with their purpose, would be more committed to their purpose. The data illustrated that students who described themselves as engaging with their purpose scored higher on "purpose commitment," as measured by the Modified Purpose Scale, than students who did not indicate "purpose engagement," suggesting that active engagement with a purpose might be an important factor in the level of commitment youth feel toward their purpose. Students did not significantly differ on their "purpose classification" (i.e., one purpose, parallel purpose, integrated purpose, no purpose), "purpose engagement," or "purpose commitment," by grade, gender, or ethnicity. Additionally, their "purpose commitment," as measured by the Modified Purpose Scale and Modified Short Grit Scale, did not differ by "purpose classification." Limitations and further implications of this study, as well as suggestions for future research are also addressed.

Social-emotional learning (SEL) refers to a set of competencies that form the basis of human interaction. So, SEL in schools is no fad. But what would happen if every school actively wanted to bring in SEL tomorrow? Using the articles in the special issue on SEL as a springboard, this article looks at the neurological basis of SEL, SEL best practices, approaches to SEL instruction, assessment, and the complex issue of SEL and equity, and it reflects on the implications of these areas for scaling up sooner rather than later. Specific guidelines are provided, starting with this basic point: There are not enough experts available to guide this process, so schools must invest in staff learning about SEL, its rootedness in our biology, its basic role in accomplishing everything humans try to accomplish, and what we know about best practices and must provide cohort-based, ongoing professional development experiences that provide continuous support.

In response to school environments in which teachers and students feel disconnected from the learning process, we developed a three-part curriculum feedback system with the goal of creating a school-wide culture of engagement through participatory feedback processes. Here we describe the barriers to participation and ownership that are addressed by our curriculum feedback process, provide a rationale for each component of the multi-prong feedback process, and illustrate how each part of the feedback system was implemented in our pilot schools. We argue that addressing feedback regularly, optimizing the process to be user-friendly, and demonstrating appreciation for positive and constructive feedback can help any curriculum supervisor foster a school-wide culture of engagement among teachers and students.

Teaching character virtues and social-emotional skills in isolation of social-political context is incomplete at best. Further, racial and ethnic inequity in social action and political influence spans from youth to adults and must be addressed (Kahne & Middaugh, 2008b). Middle school is a crucial developmental time to cultivate students' social-emotional and character competencies alongside their social actions promoting positive change (Jones & Kahn, 2017). This article describes how our social-emotional and character development curriculum, called Mastering Our Skills and Inspiring Character (MOSAIC), inspired students to improve their school, community, and world. The lessons required students to engage in the kind of active learning that the Association for Middle Level Education champions through its statement, This We Believe: Keys to Educating Young Adolescents, by applying the skills they learn in the classroom to relevant social issues (National Middle School Association [NMSA], 2010). Our article brings this approach to life by illustrating its use in an under-resourced, highly stressed, urban school system.

The majority of students with learning disabilities have difficulties with social relationships. In this article, three key skill areas in social-emotional learning are identified as the main source of these difficulties: recognizing emotions in self and others, regulating and managing strong emotions (positive and negative), and recognizing strengths and areas of need. Research supporting their connection with learning disabilities is reviewed. In addition, three examples of interventions that are comprehensive and link academic and social-emotional learning are presented. The first is from language arts. The others are pedagogical procedures that draw upon the multiple intelligences to assist students with tasks such as projects or reports and working through academic and social challenges.

Objectives. The present research had two main objectives. The first was to examine the impact of emotional intelligence and aspects of spiritual intelligence on life satisfaction among emerging adults in high-income countries. The second objective was to study the interactions between the variables. Methods. First, we used predictive analysis to examine the impact of emotional and spiritual intelligences on life satisfaction beyond that accounted for by gender and by anxiety and depression. Second, we studied the interactions between the variables measured by means of decision-tree analysis. Results. Personal meaning production emerged as the primary determining factor of life satisfaction. In addition, the participants with both personal meaning production and emotional intelligence above a certain threshold had the highest average scores on life satisfaction. Conclusions. The results suggest that further research on emerging adults should investigate the critical issue of identity development, specifically regarding the impact of spiritual and emotional intelligence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the key role of social-emotional and character development (SECD) competencies in college, career, and life success--and considering that many of those competencies are teachable--there is no excuse for failing to incorporate them systematically into our education system. That would be the equivalent of depriving children of oxygen. This article is addressed to the U.S. Secretary of Education and other education policymakers and offers them specific recommendations to guide policy that would yield high-quality programs of support for SECD in all schools.

In urban schools overwhelmed by increasing demands to raise test scores, exclusive focus on increasing academic competencies has proven ineffective. School-wide, comprehensive social-emotional and character development (SECD), focused on the cultivation of Noble Purpose, provides an alternative pathway toward life, college, and career success. We illustrate an SECD approach to cultivating Noble Purpose by describing the development of the MOSAIC (Mastering Our Skills and Inspiring Character) approach. The MOSAIC approach is grounded in the theory that social-emotional skills and character virtues must be explicitly taught in tandem. MOSAIC is unique in its focus on building Noble Purpose, a character virtue that we argue is missing in SECD approaches for middle school youth. In urban schools plagued by institutional and structural inequities and challenges, the MOSAIC content and structure provides an alternative route to closing achievement gaps, while preparing urban middle school youth for success in college, career, and life.

The authors quantify and unpack the prevalence and effects of bullying on children and adolescents before prescribing provisos for schools to consider when planning preventive and responsive approaches to bullying.

This article synthesizes the current research on bullying prevention and intervention in order to provide guidance to schools seeking to select and implement antibullying strategies. Evidence-based best practices that are shared across generally effective antibullying approaches are elucidated, and these strategies are grounded in examples garnered from model antibullying programs as implemented in contemporary schools. Future directions for practice, research, and policy are also explicated.