Update 3: Social-Emotional Learning and Poverty

I am curious as to what social-emotional learning (SEL) approaches have to say about the staggering increase in student poverty, which may account for 41% of all American children when factoring in that families at the federal poverty line (21%) typically need around twice that income to meet basic needs. Poverty is a veritable wellspring for a number of the problems that children experience, including the wide range of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that educators routinely encounter in public classrooms.

The problems that beset disadvantaged students are rarely cognitive in terms of measurable intelligence (although malnutrition and chronic poverty can affect brain development). Rather, recent studies seem to indicate that emotional intelligence (EQ) is a larger predictor of scholastic outcomes and success. Developing positive character traits, such as self-control or perseverance, is more important to overall achievement than innate ability or talent. While more research needs to be conducted within low-income and migrant communities, data holds out the promise that the cognitive “soft skills” developed through SEL can be justified not only on academic grounds but will benefit students well into their adulthood.

Studies conducted at the University of California, Davis, have made an interesting correlation between social-emotional learning, poverty and maternal educational attainment. Their findings showed that a mother’s level of educational attainment, rather than household income, was a better predictor of emotional intelligence in early childhood. Much of this is explained by the quality of the mother’s interactions with the child upon entry into the school system at age 4 or 5. Lower household income and levels of educational attainment were correlated with greater heightened negativity in mothers’ behaviors toward their children. These factors revealed a decreased measure of emotional competence in children, increasing the later development of risk factors like depression and other forms of mental illness. Children’s early emotion understanding predicts their later non-compliance in a classroom setting. Children are more emotionally self-aware are less likely to exhibit non-compliant behaviors as they continue on in their educational careers. While demographic risk does not directly predict non-compliant tendencies when a child is introduced into preschool or kindergarten, it does predict the quality of mother-child interactions, which consequently leads to differences in compliance. Children with low EQ are less likely to understand emotions in themselves and others, a disadvantage when it comes to comprehending and following instructions, which are critical to overall academic success.

The implications are that social inequalities resolve into the quality of a child-parent relationship, which in turn threatens to perpetuate cycles of intergenerational poverty (assuming that scholastic achievement is an adequate index for future social mobility). ECE intervention models and child-parent coaching programs, when designed with cultural sensitivity and competence in mind, show promise in breaking the bonds of social inertia.

References: 

http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html

https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/policy-brief/how-poverty-and-depression-impact-childs-social-and-emotional-competence

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/can_social_emotional_learning_help_disadvantaged_students