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For many years, researchers studied EFs in the laboratory with a focus on understanding an individual child's development and brain processes in a controlled environment. Building on this foundational research, there is a growing interest in EFs in the context of a child's dynamic, social world and the contextual and compositional factors influencing EF development. This paper provides a descriptive view of EFs in 1,112 K-3 children from six schools in Phoenix, AZ. The study's goals were to examine (1) variation in EF scores between and within schools and classrooms, (2) predictors of variation in children's spring EF scores, and (3) individual and compositional predictors of children's spring EF scores. Our findings indicate greater variation in children's EF within schools than between, with very little or no variation arising from differences between schools. Though we observed greater variation within classrooms than between them, a notable amount of variance in children's spring EF scores appears to arise from differences between classrooms. Classroom-level variables, including a fall leave-out classroom mean (without the students' own score) and the number of children in the top or bottom grade-level quartiles in each classroom, were significant predictors of variation in spring EF scores as well as in fall to spring changes in EF. In some cases, the classroom variables were stronger predictors than individual fall scores. Findings suggest that understanding variation and cultivating growth in EF skills requires intervention, measurement, and analytic approaches that extend beyond the individual to include compositional features of the classroom environment. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

With a sample of 7,752 fourth- to seventh-grade students in 25 schools which were randomized at the school level to condition, this article reports experimental impacts of an enhanced version of Wo...

To explore individual identity narratives of accommodation and resistance in relationship to dominant American social, political and cultural constructs, this paper uses the Listening Guide Method of Qualitative Inquiry (Gilligan et al., 2006) to investigate the intersectionality of race, ethnicity, gender and American identity during and post college among four second-generation, college educated, Korean American women. The analysis, drawing from the emergence of themes across interviews, found that participant women accommodated and/or resisted dominant American social, political, and cultural constructs in service of their individual Korean American identities narratives during and post college.

Summary There's a strong case for making social and emotional learning (SEL) skills and competencies a central feature of elementary school. Children who master SEL skills get along better with others, do better in school, and have more successful careers and better mental and physical health as adults. But evidence from the most rigorous studies of elementary-school SEL programs is ambiguous. Some studies find few or no effects, while others find important and meaningful effects. Or studies find effects for some groups of students but not for others. What causes such variation isn't clear, making it hard to interpret and act on the evidence. What are the sources of variation in the impacts of SEL programs designed for the elementary years? To find out, Stephanie Jones, Sophie Barnes, Rebecca Bailey, and Emily Doolittle examine how the theories of change behind 11 widely used school-based SEL interventions align with the way those interventions measure outcomes. Their central conclusion is that what appears to be variation in impacts may instead stem from imprecise program targets misaligned with too-general measures of outcomes. That is to say, program evaluations often fail to measure whether students have mastered the precise skills the programs seek to impart. The authors make three recommendations for policy makers, practitioners, and researchers. The first is that we should focus more on outcomes at the teacher and classroom level, because teachers' own social-emotional competency and the quality of the classroom environment can have a huge effect on students' SEL. Second, because the elementary years span a great many developmental and environmental transitions, SEL programs should take care to focus on the skills appropriate to each grade and age, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach. Third, they write, measurement of SEL skills among children in this age range should grow narrower in focus but broader in context and depth. www.futureofchildren.org Research has shown that during the elementary school years, social and emotional skills are related to positive academic, social, and mental health outcomes. For example, correlational studies show that classrooms function more effectively and student learning increases when children can focus their attention, manage negative emotions, navigate relationships with peers and adults, and persist in the face of difficulty. (1) Children who effectively manage their thinking, attention, and behavior are also more likely to have better grades and higher standardized test scores. (2) Children with strong social skills are more likely to make and sustain friendships, initiate positive relationships with teachers, participate in classroom activities, and be positively engaged in learning. (3) Indeed, social and emotional skills in childhood have been tied to important life outcomes 20 to 30 years later, including job and financial security, as well as physical and mental health. (4) This compelling evidence suggests that there's a strong case for making such non-academic skills and competencies a central feature of schooling, both because of their intrinsic value to society and, from a pragmatic standpoint, because they may help to reduce achievement and behavior gaps and mitigate exposure to stress. (5) But what do we know about efforts designed to improve and support social and emotional skills in the elementary years? The evidence from gold-standard studies--in which one group is randomly assigned to receive an intervention while another is not--is ambiguous. What works, for whom it works, and under what conditions often varies. For example, we've seen largescale national studies that find small or no effects from interventions designed for the elementary school years, and many individual studies that find important and meaningful effects. (6) What causes such variation isn't clear, making it hard to interpret and act on the evidence. …

Research suggests that early mother–child attachment styles are predictive of cognitive skill development in middle childhood. Yet, little work has considered the differential associations of varying attachment styles on reading and math skills in middle childhood, and the mechanisms explaining those relationships across time. Using data from the first three phases of the National Institute of Child and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, this study examined associations between early mother–child attachment styles and math and reading skill development in middle childhood (i.e., ages 54 months to fifth grade). In addition, using a multilevel mediation approach, we considered children's task engagement and engagement/exploration in the classroom as mechanisms explaining gains in cognitive skills. Findings revealed that insecure/other attachment predicted lower average levels of reading and math skills in fifth grade, while ambivalent attachment was associated with lower average levels of math skills in fifth grade. Children's task engagement partially mediated associations between insecure/other attachment and reading skills, as well as associations between ambivalent attachment and math skills. Task engagement also partially mediated associations between insecure/other attachment and math skills in middle childhood. Implications for attachment theory and educational practice are discussed.

Research Findings: Racial/ethnic minority low-income children with temperaments high in negative reactivity are at heightened risk for developing disruptive behavior problems. Teacher–child relationships characterized by high levels of closeness and low levels of conflict may protect against the development of disruptive behaviors in school. The present study examined whether teacher–child closeness and conflict moderated the association between temperamental negative reactivity and growth in disruptive behaviors in low-income Black and Hispanic kindergarten and 1st-grade children. Findings revealed that negative reactivity predicted higher overall levels of in-school disruptive behavior problems at the beginning of kindergarten as well as growth in behavior problems over kindergarten and 1st grade. However, the effect of negative reactivity on disruptive behaviors was attenuated when children had relationships with teachers characterized by high levels of closeness and low levels of conflict. Practice or...