Schools are important in nurturing social skills and behaviours. Research consistently demonstrates that movement into/out of school (transience/mobility) disrupts positive social skill development, especially for students who frequently move. The impact of attending a highly transient school on "non-mobile" students is not as…

Students who experience poverty often face barriers to school success. These barriers include emotional factors that affect learning, internal motivation, as well as social and cultural barriers. This multiple case study examines how a specific school intervention program, Jobs for America's Graduates (JAG), increases students' social well-being…

As the expectations for including creativity in K-12 education continually grow, creative process skills equip students with thinking strategies to generate and evaluate ideas. This systematic review explored existing research on elementary and secondary gifted classroom environments that promote creative process skills. A database search yielded…

Short term experimental studies by DiPerna and colleagues have demonstrated the efficacy of the Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS) to measure and improve the social skills and academic functioning of students from Preparatory year to Grade 3 and to decrease problem behaviours. This longitudinal school-led project applied the multi-tiered…

The evaluation of psychosocial interventions in low income countries requires focus on cultural appropriateness, implementation, and the experiences of participants. This nested qualitative study follows a previous controlled trial that reported positive outcomes for students participating in the Living Well life skills intervention. The current…

The field of Positive Behavior Support (PBS) has grown and changed significantly in the past 25 years and should be expected to continue that trend for the next 25 years. These changes cannot always be predicted, but they can be managed by considering some current changes to the definition of PBS (Kincaid et al., 2016). This paper discussed how…

"Play" is a word used commonly to refer to children's preferred activities and to some adult activities, and it is often said that play promotes learning. But what is play exactly, and what and how do children learn through play? This essay begins with a description of an evolutionary, practice theory of play by German philosopher and…

This cluster randomized trial evaluated the impact of the Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS) curriculum on children's psychological wellbeing, peer social support, and school connectedness. Forty-five schools in England were randomly assigned to implement PATHS or continue their usual provision for 2 years. The trial sample was…

Statistics on K-12 students with mental health challenges almost guarantee that teachers will encounter these students in their classrooms. Educators will be more prepared and successful if they have feasible strategies to promote student well-being and avoid exacerbating existing problems. This article presents research-based classroom practices…

Over the last few years, social and emotional skills have been rising on the education policy agenda and in the public debate. Policy makers and education practitioners are seeking ways to complement the focus on academic learning, with attention to social and emotional skill development. Social and emotional skills are a subset of an individual's…

Given the importance of social and emotional competence and confidence in early childhood, there has been growing attention on providing young children deliberate experiences to practice and acquire essential foundational skills for health and well-being. This article shares examples to illustrate how children can easily apply simple tools within…

The arts have been a presence in prisons for over a century; these programs have varied aims, from educational and skill development to social-emotional learning to reentry preparation. Despite the popularity of arts programs across the prison landscape, relatively few researchers have empirically studied the outcomes of participating in arts…

A multisite cluster-randomized trial (by school) was conducted to examine the effects of a combined mental health literacy and dialectical behavior therapy skills program implemented by teachers on three protective factors related to social and emotional well-being. The sample of eight schools that were randomly assigned to intervention included…

Schools can view challenging student behavior in one of two ways: (1) as a failure on the part of the student or teacher that distracts from the work of learning, or (2) as a normal developmental occurrence that provides an opportunity for the student to practice new or emerging skills. The authors of this article, researchers at the Harvard…

Positive development models shift focus for intervention from avoiding problems, deficits, or psychopathology to promoting skills, assets, and psychological well-being as the critical interests in development and intervention. The field can be characterized as multiple parallel lines of empirical inquiry from four frameworks: Social Competence,…