Socio Emotional Learning Creating a wholesome child EdIndia

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the capacity to recognize and manage emotions, solve problems effectively, and establish positive relationships with others, competencies that clearly are essential for all students. Thus, SEL targets a combination of behaviours, cognitions, and emotions. As described by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), SEL is the process of acquiring and effectively applying the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to recognize and manage emotions; developing caring and concern for others; making responsible decisions; establishing positive relationships; and handling challenging situations capably. Similar to the way students learn academic skills, they learn, practice, and apply SEL skills by engaging in positive activities in and out of the classroom.

Why SEL is important?

Socio-emotional learning is important for students education and development and has been shown to further influence an individual s achievement and outcomes. This includes the level of education that students achieve, their academic progress while they are in school, their pathways beyond education including entry into the labour market, and future earnings.

Although researchers have avoided identifying direct causality between academic learning and SEL, it is widely accepted that SEL has a mutually reinforcing relationship with academic learning, whereby gains in one domain are said to bring about gains in the other.

From this perspective, improving students SEL is regarded as a potential area of intervention for improving students academic learning, and it may even help to remediate for deficits in academic outcomes.