Integration of SEL into Academics: Creating the Conditions for Success

Key Points

• Findings across this blog series echo what educators have long observed in practice: Students learn best and do better in school when they feel connected, capable, and supported.
• Bringing together multiple perspectives across data sources reveals new insights. Data that are publicly available, reported in a timely manner, and disaggregated play an important role in understanding effective practices.
• We need strong funding and policy support for research to identify and implement strong, evidence-based practices.

This blog is part of a four-part series on the integration of SEL and academic instruction, which brought together multiple sources of data to reveal new findings. In the previous blogs, we drew on perspectives from principals across the country, examined schools demonstrating strong reading and math outcomes, and pulled from our National Implementation Study scan of SEL-related supportive state policies to test correlations between academic integration and student outcomes. 

Together, these data sources revealed a consistent message: 

Academic integration of SEL—whether in core content area classrooms or through state-level policies—is related to student success in reading and math. 

Importantly, these findings build on decades of research connecting SEL to academic success. For many years, we have known that when students develop social and emotional skills—such as self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making—they are better positioned to succeed academically. 

Recent meta-analyses, which synthesize findings across many individual studies, have uncovered compelling findings, including: 

• Robust positive impacts of SEL on academic outcomes (e.g., Cirpriano et al., 2023; Greenberg, 2023)
• The association of SEL interventions with a 4.2 percentile point increase in academic achievement (Ha et al., 2025). 

A new resource providing a dashboard of evidence on outcomes associated with SEL shows that across 46 studies and 143 findings, 72 percent found positive impacts of SEL on academics.

CASEL’s own Program Guide is a one-stop resource for programs that rigorously integrate SEL into academic instruction, highlighting those that embed collaboration, reflection, problem-solving, and student voice directly into teaching and learning, rather than treating SEL and academics as competing priorities.

Questions Still Remaining

We have come a long way in understanding approaches to integrating SEL into academics and the impact of SEL on academic outcomes. The question is no longer whether SEL can support academic success, but which approaches are most effective, for which students, and under what conditions. Now is the time to get more specific and ask the next frontier of questions, such as: 

• Which evidence-based practices have the stronger impacts on student outcomes?  
• What conditions are necessary for their effectiveness? 

To answer these questions, we need to individually and collectively advance research and learning that can be used by decision-makers and practitioners. Doing so will require all of the following:

• Publicly available data that anyone can use. These data are even more useful when they are available in a timely manner, disaggregated, and include clear descriptions.
• Dashboards like the SEL Evidence Dashboard and the Return to Learn Tracker that help us to identify trends in education data. 
• Collaborations between practitioners and researchers to strengthen the ways in which we interpret and effectively act on data.

To support these efforts, funding matters greatly, both for conducting research and for supporting implementation of evidence-based practices. In the National Implementation Study, we found that school spending on SEL was associated with stronger academic integration, more professional learning opportunities for educators, and fewer implementation barriers like those discussed in our second blog in this series. When schools have dedicated resources for SEL, they are better able to create coherent systems that support both student well-being and academic learning. 

Federal investments can play an important role in accelerating this work. Programs such as the Education Innovation and Research (EIR) grant create opportunities for schools, districts, and researchers to develop and study, implement, and scale innovative approaches that integrate SEL and academics. 

To support SEL integration in academics, we need engagement at all levels: 

• Students need opportunities to develop, practice skills, and apply skills in the classroom. 
• Teachers need professional learning on implementing evidence-based practices. 
• Principals and administrators need policies and funding to bring resources to their schools and districts. 

CASEL’s Resources on Academic Integration

SEL in Math Guidelines: A set of free guidelines designed to support curriculum developers in incorporating equity-centered SEL into high-quality mathematics curriculum materials. Available through CASEL’s Guide to Schoolwide SEL

Innovations Series on Academic Integration: A series of reports highlighting the importance of systemic, integrated SEL in classrooms

Integration of SEL and Academics: Free guidance for implementation from CASEL’s Guide to Schoolwide SEL

This work is made possible through the generous support of the Stone Foundation.

Want to deepen your approach to academic integration of SEL? Sign up to be notified about future sessions of Integrating Social and Emotional Learning With Academic Instruction and CASEL’s other virtual workshops.

Related Posts

• New Data: Academic Performance and Social & Emotional Learning
• Want to Improve Students’ Reading? Make it Easier for Teachers to Integrate SEL
• Adding It Up: The Impact of Supportive SEL Policies and Conditions on Math Proficiency

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