The SEL Paradox in Middle School: What Every Educator Needs to Know

Think back to who you were in middle school. Does that memory make you glow with feelings of accomplishment or cringe with discomfort?

For many of us, the answer is the latter. And yet, the middle school years are filled with positive opportunities for change, growth, discovery, and development.

Those of us focused on social and emotional learning (SEL) during this developmental period often shake our collective head at this dilemma. Some wish we understood youth development better. Others wish there were more SEL resources for the middle school years. Still others have a good hunch about what’s happening during this time but long for more evidence about changes during these years.

Let’s take a look at this often perplexing period to examine what’s already known and how we can help students get the most from this important time in their development.

What Do We Know About Middle School?

We know that academic learning increases as kids get older. Youth gain knowledge and skills as they age. Young children show the biggest leaps in knowledge and skills each year. Older children show smaller gains each year but, on average, they clearly show an upward trend in academic learning. We know about these academic trends from nationally normed tests.

Unlike indicators of learning and achievement that show growth from year to year, most social and emotional competencies fluctuate, according to our new research. Youth describe themselves as having stronger self-management or social awareness in fourth and fifth grade than middle school. That means fourth and fifth graders rate themselves higher on coming to class prepared and getting along with people who are different than them compared to middle school students.

Likewise, fourth and fifth graders experience more academic self-efficacy than middle schoolers. (Academic self-efficacy is one facet of self-awareness.) That is to say, the average 9- and 10-year-old thinks that they can master the hardest topics in their classes, but then their perception of that efficacy plummets until about age 15 or so.

Growth mindset is the exception in that youth report gradual rises between grades 4 and 12, which means they show some growth in their perception that they can change their intelligence with hard work. (Growth mindset is one facet of self-awareness.) The findings show some differences by gender and parental education, but the trends—particularly the declines in three out of the four social and emotional competencies during middle school—are evident regardless of the demographic group.

How Do We Know This Information?

My colleagues Jim Soland and Megan Kuhfeld and I have had the good fortune to work with an exceptional dataset of almost 100,000 students to understand middle schoolers and their development of social and emotional competencies.

The CORE districts in California have been conducting annual surveys on youth growth mindset, self-efficacy, self-management, and social awareness in grades 4 through 12 for well over a decade. The figure below shows the trends in social and emotional competencies over time between fourth and twelfth grade.

One take-home message is that the variation among youth is remarkable. Although on average youth show declines in social and emotional competencies, some youth show rises in these competencies over this same developmental period.

Another take-home message relates to self-efficacy and gender. Girls outpace boys in self-efficacy in fourth grade, but by sixth grade that pattern has reversed and, on average, boys show higher self-efficacy than girls from sixth through twelfth grade.

These findings fit with other work on middle school students. Middle schoolers are highly aware of status, who respects them, and the hierarchies that exist in their classrooms and schools. They engage in a lot of social comparison. Youth are keen observers of the people around them and they are always comparing others to themselves. Those observations become the raw material for the development of their identity.

Where Can I Find Out More?

The paper describing these findings is available in the journal American Psychologist; it’s open access, so it’s free to download and share. Some of the ideas for this work emerged decades ago from Chip Wood, SEL thought-leader and author of the well-known book Yardsticks. The work reminds us that when districts commit to measuring social and emotional competencies for a long period of time, we can gain crucial, usable knowledge to guide decisions in schools.

How Can Educators Make the Most Out of the Middle School Years?

Three big ideas matter:

• Make learning meaningful.
• Use SEL designed for middle school youth (not children).
• Show respect toward youth, even when they seem difficult.

New research by Allison Ward-Seidel directs instruction toward real-world problems and content that is personally relevant, hands-on, socially interactive, and focused on skills youth know are important for their future.

Not surprisingly, there are many social and emotional learning approaches that can support schools’ efforts to meet the needs of youth during this time. Youth crave opportunities to make society better, and service-learning opportunities are a great match. Respect is essential, and we’ve learned that showing respect takes a unique form in middle school, especially for students of color.

What’s The Biggest Insight You Can Share With Teachers About How SEL Supports Academic Success?

Many people hold onto the myth that middle school students need autonomy above all else. Yes, it is true that middle school students need autonomy, but they also need close, supportive relationships with adults who care deeply about them and know them authentically. High-quality SEL practices are one way to create these supportive relationships that will help students make the most of this often challenging but fruitful period in their lives.

The views in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of CASEL.

Dr. Sara Rimm-Kaufman has been conducting research on elementary and middle school classrooms for the last 20 years. She and her team strive to develop roadmaps for administrators and teachers making decisions for teachers, youth, and children. As Commonwealth Professor of Education at the University of Virginia, she has had a steadfast commitment to examining ways of improving school experiences for students facing adversity. She has conducted research on many SEL programs including Connect Science, EL Education, Leading Together, Responsive Classroom, RULER, Valor Collegiate, among others. She and her team have authored more than 80 articles and have garnered more than $15 million in research grants to study SEL. One challenge she sees is that researchers have extensive knowledge about SEL but rarely share it with educators in an accessible format. This concern led her to write, SEL from the Start, a book for teachers published by Norton in 2020, and SEL in Action: Creating System Change in Schools, published by Guilford. Dr. Rimm-Kaufman serves on the CASEL Research Advisory Board and as an associate editor for SEL: Research, Practice & Policy. In 2007, she was the inaugural awardee of the Joseph Zins Purpose Award for Early Career Contributions in SEL.

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