What is SEL » Climate & Connectedness

Within caring learning communities, there are respectful, supportive relationships among students, teachers, and parents. Students have opportunities to collaborate with others, as well as to experience autonomy and influence, and there is a sense of shared purpose and ideals among all members of the community. In such communities, students and faculty and staff look forward to walking through the schoolhouse door.

There is solid evidence demonstrating that student attachment to school is strongly influenced by the learning environment. Classroom and school interventions that make the learning environment safer, more caring, better managed, more participatory, and that enhance students’ social competence, have been shown to increase student attachment to school. In turn, students who are more engaged and attached to school have better attendance and higher graduation rates, as well as higher grades and standardized tests scores.

Research also indicates that attachment to school decreases the prevalence of high-risk behaviors. Interventions that improve classroom climate and functioning, and enhance student attachment to school, decrease rates of high-risk behaviors. When students are attached to school and to prosocial teachers and peers, they are more likely to behave in prosocial ways themselves, and to avoid engaging in high-risk behaviors. Providing students with opportunities for participation may also increase students’ intrinsic motivation to behave in prosocial ways, thereby decreasing school crime and other forms of deviant behavior in the school setting.

• Read our SEL & Academics research brief for a summary of these findings, and for the research citations.