In schools, the academic life of children is often put in the front of educational practice, yet attention to the whole child is valuable because it underlies improvements in multiple child outcomes (Cantor, Osher, Berg, Steyer, and Rose, 2018; Osher, Cantor, Berg, Steyer, & Rose, 2018). Whole-child development is an approach that focuses on supporting not only academic skills but personal, social, and emotional skills in children (Darling-Hammond et. al., 2019). Especially important for the present study is the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning CASEL framework’s competencies of self-awareness as well as social awareness and relationship skills (CASEL 2013; 2020). Children´s self-concept is one key index within the domain of self-awareness and children´s prosocial behaviors are an indicator of social awareness and relationship skills. In the present study, we examined cross-sectional associations between indicators of social emotional competence (i.e., self-concept, prosocial behaviors) and children’s well-being and academic skills.
Participants comprised 143 children in second grade in four municipal primary schools. Eight elementary school teachers provided teacher ratings of the prosocial behaviors of participating children. Other constructs were child reported well-being and self-concept. Children also completed tests in math and literacy.
The main findings from a structural equation model showed that the indicators of social emotional competence: self-concept and prosocial behaviors correlated moderately. Self-concept correlated highly with well-being and prosocial behaviors. Academic skills in terms of reading and math correlated moderately with prosocial behaviors and also well-being with math. Correlations between reading and well-being, reading and self-concept as well as math and self-concept were low and non-significant.
The present study is important from a Nordic perspective given that there is a need to build up empirical examples for why a whole child approach to education has value and should be retained and emphasized throughout a child’s education.
References
Cantor, P., Osher, D., Berg, J., Steyer, L., & Rose, T. (2019). Malleability, Plasticity, and Individuality: How Children Learn and Develop in Context. Applied Developmental Science, 23 (4), 307-337.
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. (2013). 2013 CASEL guide: Effective social and emotional learning programs—Preschool and elementary school edition.
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning. (2020). CASEL's SEL framework.
Darling-Hammond, L., Flook, L., Cook-Harvey, C., Barron, B, and Osher, D. (2020). Implications for educational practice of the science of learning and development. Applied developmental science, 24 (2) 97-140.
Osher, D., Cantor, P., Berg, J., Steyer, L., & Rose, T. (2018). Drivers of human development: How relationships and context shape learning and development. Applied developmental science, 22 (1), 1-31.