Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in Education: Definition, Implementation, and Benefits

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is an educational method that aims to foster social and emotional skills within school curricula. It is a strengths-based, developmental process that begins at birth and evolves across the lifespan. SEL implementation is crucial in building SEL in education and providing whole-child support for students.

Historical Context and Development of SEL

SEL began in the 1960s at the Yale School of Medicine in its Child Study Center. Professor James Comer initiated the Comer School Development Program, focusing on the education systems of low-income African-American communities, particularly the elementary schools in New Haven, Connecticut, due to their poor academic report cards. The school implemented programs that focused on the social and emotional needs of the students. In 1987, Roger Weissberg, Timothy Shriver, researchers, and educators established the New Haven Social Development program.

In 2019, the concept of Transformative Social and Emotional Learning (Transformative SEL, TSEL, or T-SEL) was developed.

Definition of Social and Emotional Learning

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is a term for the way children acquire social and emotional skills. It includes things like managing difficult emotions, making responsible decisions, handling stress, setting goals, and building healthy relationships. It is an integral part of education and human development. SEL advances educational equity and excellence through authentic school-family-community partnerships to establish learning environments and experiences that feature trusting and collaborative relationships, rigorous and meaningful curriculum and instruction, and ongoing evaluation.

The CASEL Framework and Core Competencies

One widely used framework for SEL is the CASEL framework, named for an organization that introduced the term SEL over two decades ago. The CASEL framework identifies five core social and emotional competencies:

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Self-awareness: The abilities to understand one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior across contexts. This includes capacities to recognize one’s strengths and limitations with a well-grounded sense of confidence and purpose and includes having a growth mindset. It encompasses the ability to identify and recognize one’s own emotions and thoughts and understand how they impact behavior.
Self-management: The abilities to manage one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations and to achieve goals and aspirations. This includes the capacities to delay gratification, manage stress, and feel motivation and agency to accomplish personal and collective goals. It involves being able to manage one’s emotions and impulses, manage stress, and set personal goals.
Social awareness: The abilities to understand the perspectives of and empathize with others, including those from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and contexts. This includes the capacities to feel compassion for others, understand broader historical and social norms for behavior in different settings, and recognize family, school, and community resources and supports. It means having empathy and respect for others and the ability to take on different perspectives.
Relationship skills: The abilities to establish and maintain healthy and supportive relationships and to effectively navigate settings with diverse individuals and groups. This includes the capacities to communicate clearly, listen actively, cooperate, work collaboratively to problem solve and negotiate conflict constructively, navigate settings with differing social and cultural demands and opportunities, provide leadership, and seek or offer help when needed.
Responsible decision-making: The abilities to make caring and constructive choices about personal behavior and social interactions across diverse situations. It involves the ability to make ethical, constructive choices about personal behavior and social interactions.

Why SEL Matters

SEL is said to be important for teachers to understand and demonstrate in their classrooms in order to make the learning process more natural and easier to adjust to for students. Things like responsible decision making and positive relationship building are much easier to learn for students who are constantly exposed to examples of the behavior. When SEL is woven into lessons and the school environment, students relate better to the content, are more motivated to learn, and understand the curriculum more easily. Proponents say SEL can also lead to students learning important skills for the workplace as well, like teamwork, time management, and communication skills.

Benefits of SEL

Research shows that SEL consistently has positive effects on students’ success - from their academic performance and behavior to their ability to manage stress. Other research has shown that these long-term benefits are consistent across demographic groups - meaning that SEL instruction can support the positive development of children from diverse backgrounds and geographies. It’s been shown that SEL can help children feel more confident and happy in the classroom and in life in general.

A significant reduction in problem behaviors was noted as a result of explicitly teaching children skills in social and emotional learning. For example, according to a research study on children aged 4 to 14, social-emotional learning programs were shown to be effective in promoting positive outcomes for students. Many more of these randomized-controlled trials have been conducted and found to have multiple outcomes with statistical significance well beyond the currently accepted standards.

Integrating SEL into the Curriculum

Educators usually integrate SEL into their curricula through both explicit instruction on the competencies and, equally importantly, through ongoing reinforcement of these skills. Explicit SEL instruction might include lessons on how to identify and label your feelings, build your emotional vocabulary, consider other people’s perspectives and experiences, and brainstorm solutions to problems.

The key to effectively teaching SEL competencies is reinforcing these lessons every day in the classroom. It’s not about a standalone activity; it’s about having a school culture that’s committed to engaging in social-emotional learning - where it’s infused into every day, with repetition of the lessons and skills. For example, while teaching children a lesson on conflict resolution is important, so is coaching them through conflicts when they happen in real time - reinforcing those skills and giving them a place to practice them. It’s not always activity-based; it’s thinking about what skills they need to know and how to engage in conversations about them. When they’re doing things that cause harm to other people, you’re practicing, ‘How did that make someone else feel?’ to build empathy. It’s taking the times that they don’t do things right as teaching moments.

SEL Implementation in Washington State

The Washington Social Emotional Learning (SEL) standards and benchmarks were developed and adopted in January 2020 through the lens of four guiding principles: equity, universal design, culturally sustaining, and trauma-informed practices.

Every other school year, school districts must use one of the professional learning days funded under RCW 28A.415.445 to train staff on SEL or SEL-related topics. From September to December 2018, Education Northwest conducted a landscape scan of social and emotional learning (SEL) activities across Washington state.

Trauma-Informed Practices in SEL

A trauma-informed school recognizes that trauma affects staff, students, families, communities, and systems. A trauma-informed child and family service system responds to the impact of traumatic stress on children, caregivers, and service providers.

SEL and Equity

SEL and equity work hand-in-hand! The Washington OER Hub is an online platform for sharing K-12 open educational resources- providing equitable access to standards-aligned, high-quality instructional material.

Integrating Mental Health Literacy (MHL) with SEL

As the need for mental health information and resources continues to grow, integrating Mental Health Literacy (MHL) with Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is essential for supporting the whole student. By supporting schools in delivering clear and intentional social and health content, while fostering a safe and positive learning environment grounded in evidence-based practices and strong implementation strategies, students’ health, safety, and overall well-being will improve, allowing for consistent school engagement.

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SEL Program Tiers

SEL programs in schools are often structured across three tiers based on children’s needs.

Tier one is the standard program, taught to all students, with the aim of helping them develop the competencies and prevent behavioral or emotional problems from developing.
Tier two is for children who haven’t responded to tier one and show some signs of risk, such as behavioral issues, social difficulties, or academic struggles.
Tier three is for students who require more intensive support, potentially through individualized counseling or a behavior intervention plan.

The Role of Parents in SEL

Parents are their child’s first teachers, and how they model and reinforce SEL competencies at home is essential to kids’ social-emotional development. If they work in partnership, families, and schools can learn from each other about what works best for each individual child. There are skills that students are learning in school that they can apply at home, and there are things at home that are working really well for parents - that they may not even define as an SEL skill - that they can communicate with teachers. For example, a parent could share with the teacher that taking a moment to meditate or focus on deep breaths helps their child handle emotions at home and see if there’s a way to integrate that practice into the classroom when needed. It is important to really value the expertise of the home, as well as the school.

Addressing Concerns and Advocating for SEL

There are ways to advocate for SEL within a school. The best way to advocate for it in a school is to show the research and the link to improved academics. Unfortunately, sometimes social-emotional needs can come in second because schools focus on how kids are doing academically.

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