UC Berkeley

Over the last decade, a growing body of literature documents that improving youths’ social-emotional competencies can lead to better educational and developmental outcomes (Durlak et al., 2013; Taylor et al., 2017). Therefore, psychologists and educators have become increasingly interested in exploring the ways in which those behaviors and attitudes could be facilitated and taught at schools and other institutional contexts. To date, many studies have shown that successful implementation of social-emotional learning (SEL) programs depends on how school staff work together to offer effective SEL instruction and to foster a positive school climate, as well as themselves modeling social-emotional competencies (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Jones et al., 2013, 2018). The emphasis is that SEL efforts are most successful when they also occur within supportive contexts and build adult competencies (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Jones et al, 2018). However, to the best of my knowledge, no research has examined the direct impact of the workplace environment on student social-emotional competencies. In this study, I address this gap by examining whether the degree to which teachers' perceptions of the supportiveness of their own schools as workplace are associated with development of students’ social-emotional competencies. In particular, I examined the direct impact of the teacher perceptions of school organizational support on student social-emotional competencies, including self-control skills, interpersonal skills, and executive functioning (i.e., attentional focusing, inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility). Additionally, I examined the moderating role of student and school sociodemographics on such relations. Participant were 18,170 students from 1,310 schools, in a nationally representative sample within the US.

The key finding is that teacher perception of school support (TPS) brought diverse benefits for student social-emotional competencies, but the impact varied considerably by student’s grade, types of social-emotional domain, student race/ethnicity, family SES, and school poverty. Results of crossed random effect modeling suggested that TPS was positively associated with all three domains of social-emotional competencies. The impacts of TPS on student self-control and attentional focusing were stronger for later grades.

Notably, the positive relation of TPS to student social-emotional competencies was moderated by student race/ethnicity, family SES and school poverty. The positive association between TPS and all three domains of social-emotional competencies was stronger among White students than Hispanic students. The positive association between TPS and self-control skills was stronger among White students than Asian students. Additionally, compared to Black students, the positive association between TPS and student attentional focusing was stronger for White students. Furthermore, the positive prediction from TPS to student attentional focusing and interpersonal skills was stronger for students from a high SES background. Finally, the positive association between TPS and student self-control, interpersonal and attentional focusing were stronger among students who attended schools with a lower concentration of poverty.