Using Emotional Literacy to Improve Youth Serving Organizations

Principal Investigators: Marc Brackett, Ph.D., Yale University; Susan Rivers, Ph.D.; Yale University; Peter Salovey, Ph.D., Yale University
July 2007-June 2011
$2,089,191

Can an innovative, school-based social and emotional learning (SEL) intervention produce classroom-level changes in social processes between students and teachers? Will these changes enhance social, emotional, and academic competences? This project used a cluster randomized control trial to examine the impact of The RULER Approach. RULER is a multiyear SEL program that includes skill-building lessons and activities for recognizing emotions in oneself and others, understanding the causes and consequences of emotions, labeling emotions with an accurate and diverse vocabulary, and expressing and regulating emotions in socially appropriate ways (i.e., the RULER skills). RULER offers opportunities for students to learn about and practice managing emotions within the context of a standard academic curriculum (i.e., English language arts [ELA]). Professional development (training and coaching) focuses on how to teach the lessons in the student curriculum. The design of RULER is based on the achievement model of emotional literacy. Emotional literacy refers to having a mastery of the RULER skills as well as an appreciation for the significance of both emotions and RULER skills in social interactions, personal growth, and learning. The achievement model proposes that emotional literacy is acquired through experience and develops through the acquisition of emotion-related knowledge and skills; being in environments that are safe and supportive for experiencing a wide range of emotions; consistent opportunities to practice using the RULER skills with feedback; and frequent exposure to adults who model the RULER skills. RULER’s underlying theory of classroom-level change specifies that RULER first shifts the emotional qualities of classrooms, then, over time, leads to improvements in classroom organization and instructional support. Fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms in 62 schools in Brooklyn and Queens, New York, were randomly assigned to adopt RULER or to serve as comparison classrooms using their standing ELA curriculum only. Findings from the first year of programming indicated that the intervention classrooms scored higher on observer ratings of emotional support, and specifically positive learning climates and teacher regard for student perspectives. At the end of the second year of program implementation, RULER classrooms, on average, were rated higher on emotional climate, classroom organization, and instructional support compared to control classrooms. Data from the second year tested RULER’s setting-level theory of change. Using multilevel modeling with baseline adjustments as well as structural equation modeling to estimate indirect effects, support for RULER’s theory of change was found. Compared to classrooms in the comparison schools, classrooms in RULER schools exhibited greater emotional support, better classroom organization, and more instructional support at the end of the second year of program delivery. Improvements in classroom organization and instructional support at the end of Year 2 were partially explained by RULER’s impacts on classroom emotional support at the end of Year 1. Together, these findings highlight the important contribution of emotional literacy training and development in creating engaging, empowering, and productive learning environments.

Observing the Setting-Level Impact of a High School Behavioral Change Intervention: A 60-School Randomized Trial

Principal Investigators: Catherine Bradshaw, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University; C.Debra Furr-Holden, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University; Philip J. Leaf, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University
October 2011–October 2014
$750,000

High rates of disruptive behavior and disciplinary problems negatively affect school climate and distract students and staff from academic activities and goals. Traditionally, schools have responded to disruptive behaviors with punishment-based interventions or “zero-tolerance” policies, though there is limited evidence that such policies are effective. Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS)—a school intervention widely implemented throughout the United States—aims to promote a healthy school climate and prevent disruptive student behavior by establishing clear behavioral expectations and positive reinforcement. This grant provides a supplement to a U.S. Department of Education-funded group-randomized trial of PBIS in high schools. The federal study focuses on whether the intervention improves student outcomes, as indicated by administrative data and survey reports by students, parents, and school staff at 60 high schools in Maryland. Funds provided by the Foundation will allow researchers to expand the federal study and take an in-depth look at how changes in schools and classrooms drive student outcomes, why the intervention is effective in some places and not others, and the degree of variation in the implementation of the intervention across the different schools. Specifically, the researchers will collect observational data for a number of randomly selected classrooms and non-classroom settings within each school to more richly assess variables related to school safety; student engagement; interactions between teachers, staff, and students; and features of the school grounds, such as cleanliness, lighting, and surveillance equipment. The results will inform policies and programs related to the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Schools Act and advance empirical research on setting-level changes resulting from innovative high school reform models.

Activity Space, Social Network, and Community Influence on Adolescent Risk

Principal Investigators: Christopher Browning, Ph.D., Ohio State University; Mei-Po Kwan, Ph.D., Ohio State University; Elizabeth Cooksey, Ph.D., Ohio State University; Catherine Calder, Ph.D., Ohio State University
January 2012–December 2014
$599.952

The investigators are conducting a data collection effort (N=1000 youth and their caregivers) designed to address a number of research questions related to context effects on youth outcomes. Specifically, do developmentally relevant structural and social aspects of multiple youth contexts—residential neighborhoods, non-residential neighborhood/spatial exposures, schools, and peer networks uniquely or interactively affect youth outcomes (including risk behaviors and health)?

Integrating Child Welfare, Income Support, and Child Support to Improve Outcomes

Principal Investigators: Maria Cancian, Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, Madison
November 2009–May 2012
$190,966

Maria Cancian is a professor of public affairs and social work at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She has an accomplished record as an economics researcher and has produced over 40 peer-reviewed articles and chapters dealing with poverty, welfare, and child support. Her main academic interest is learning about how the child welfare system interacts with the broader child support and welfare systems. She will use her Distinguished Fellows award to spend one summer and the following semester working full-time in the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families (DCF). She will work with policymakers in the central DCF offices on a range of activities, including quality service reviews and child death reviews. She will shadow her mentors to gain a deeper appreciation of the day-to-day challenges of reorganizing a state welfare/child welfare bureaucracy, and spend an extended period of time shadowing child welfare caseworkers in two county offices to observe the intersection of policy and practice. Dr. Cancian will also work in the Department’s Office of Prevention Initiatives to learn more about efforts to foster cross-department coordination.

Understanding Social Network Structure in Schools Under Corrective Action: A Longitudinal Comparative Analysis of Research Definition Use and Diffusion in Urban Districts

Principal Investigators: Alan Daly, Ph.D., University of California, San Diego; Kara Finnigan, Ph.D., University of Rochester
August 2009–July 2014
$902,162

This mixed-method study involves two urban districts, San Diego Unified and Rochester City School, which have large numbers of schools under sanction and serve disproportionate numbers of minority youth from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Both districts have experienced significant leadership and organizational changes concurrent with decreasing budgets and increasing federal and state pressure. The investigators are conducting surveys of school and central office administrators related to research evidence, organizational learning, and social networks to assess their relationships to evidence, expertise, and practices as well as more trusting relationships. The study also involves case studies of underperforming high schools involving interviews with school and district staff, document review, and observations of meetings. Findings to date suggest a narrow definition of research evidence by educators at all levels, with an overreliance on standardized achievement data and personal experience for decision-making. The network data indicates the isolated nature of underperforming schools within the district context as well as sparse ties between central office and schools in the exchange of evidence and best practices. Moreover, findings suggest that while the structure and quantity of social ties between and among educators are important, the quality of interactions are perhaps even more critical to understanding the challenges faced by educators as they try to improve within these high pressure contexts. This study seeks to fill a gap in the literature by focusing on understanding how educators in urban districts and schools—operating in high-stakes policy contexts—acquire, interpret, and use research evidence to bring about improvement.

Early Adolescents' Experiences of Continuity and Discontinuity of School Microcontexts: Implications for Place-Based Treatment Effects

Principal Investigators: Maria LaRusso, Ph.D., New York University; Joshua Brown, Ph.D., Fordham University; Stephanie Jones, Ph.D., Harvard University
September 2009–August 2012
$524,976

What role do the social climates of classrooms and non-instructional settings (e.g., lunchrooms, playgrounds, and hallways) play in predicting youth risk behaviors and outcomes? The Institute of Educational Sciences (IES) and the Foundation previously supported an intervention study of a classroom-based curriculum on conflict resolution and social-emotional learning. The curriculum was implemented in third through fifth grade classrooms in 18 urban elementary schools and had positive outcomes. A mixed-methods, add-on study funded by the Foundation examined the social climates of elementary school micro-contexts (both instructional and non-instructional settings) and identified features of these settings that varied greatly and are important for SEL interventions (such as the quality and consistency of responses to student conflict by school staff). Now, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is supporting a follow-up study of these youth as they transition to middle schools and the Foundation is funding a similar mixed-methods, add-on study to allow the researchers to examine the nature, continuity, and effects of these social climates in middle school. Using surveys, interviews, focus groups, and observations, the researchers are exploring whether youth experience social climates similarly in elementary and middle school, how much variation exists across settings/classes within middle schools, and whether or not the quality of middle school social climates has implications for the maintenance of the positive outcomes of the elementary school intervention. The Foundation has also given supplemental funding for an advanced cost-analysis study. Preliminary analyses of CLASS data collected across multiple instructional and non-instructional settings suggest that there is significant variation among the instructional and non-instructional climates observed for different middle school micro-contexts.