At the end of the last century, social emotional learning (SEL) emerged as a relevant theme in education all over the world. What is SEL? SEL may be defined as a multidimensional construct orchestrating individuals’ ability to identify and manage emotions, feelings, and concern for others, as well as to organize and manage behaviors toward goals, solve problems and develop positive relationships.

SEL has been gaining growing popularity among researchers and practitioners. Still, there is a reasonable degree of ambiguity regarding the concept. In fact, the term is often used as an umbrella for many types of programs and interventions from distinct areas such as school, public health, mental health or character education, addressing the vulnerability of children and youth to various social and psychological problems. What is more, topics covered under the SEL umbrella are diverse as follows: emotions, cognition (including multiple intelligences), motivation, socialization in schools and families, and self-regulation and its effects.

Globally, SEL approaches aim to help children and youth become more socially and emotionally competent. Not surprisingly, extant literature has found a close connection between social-emotional development and children’s early school success. Moreover, recent literature reviews have shown the effectiveness of implementing social-emotional skills training (e.g., self-esteem, resilience, academic buoyancy and self-regulation) in the educational context.

This Research Topic aims to explore and discuss new evidence on SEL both in typically developing children and in populations at elevated likelihood of showing diverse vulnerabilities. Contributors providing novel approaches and methodologies to investigate SEL, or mediators and moderators likely to impact SEL outputs are encouraged.

In this Research Topic, we are looking forward to receiving:
• Studies aiming to introduce novel, responsive to contexts and robust techniques and methods addressing how to bring about positive and desirable SEL skills in different settings;
• Studies integrating the tenets of SEL in educational programs;
• Studies on content, implementation, and effectiveness of SEL programs and interventions;
• Studies showing how individual characteristics influence social and emotional development, particularly focusing on social determinants of SEL interventions effectiveness;

The design of the studies welcomed in this research topic are various as follows: longitudinal, quasi-experimental, experimental, large-scale quantitative exploration of correlational or cause-effect relationships, or mixed methods research studies. We welcome original empirical studies, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and conceptual papers.

This Research Topic is by invitation only and any manuscripts submitted without invitation will be transferred out of the collection.

We acknowledge the funding of the manuscripts published in this Research Topic by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. We hereby state publicly that Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation has had no editorial input in articles included in this Research Topic, thus ensuring that all aspects of this Research Topic are evaluated objectively, and unbiased by any specific policy or opinion of Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

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