What Social-Emotional Growth Can Tell Us About Student Attendance

Key Points

• This post shares insights from an article from the SEL Journal,  Social-Emotional Growth as a Protective Factor Against Chronic Absenteeism.
• In schools across the country, chronic absenteeism is one of the most urgent challenges. More than 1 in 5 students are missing school regularly for a wide range of reasons.
• Students who show meaningful growth in their social-emotional skills are about half as likely to be chronically absent as similar students who did not show that growth.

This post shares insights from an article from the SEL Journal,  Social-Emotional Growth as a Protective Factor Against Chronic Absenteeism. It was written by the article co-authors Evelyn Johnson, Ed.D., Emily Taylor, and Jennifer Robitaille.

In schools across the country, chronic absenteeism is one of the most urgent challenges educators face. More than 1 in 5 students are missing school regularly for a wide range of reasons.

Some absences are tied to illness, competing responsibilities, or barriers beyond a student’s control. But some students miss school because they don’t feel confident or ready to face the day.

What if helping students show up starts with helping them feel connected and building the social emotional skills they need to navigate school?

Looking Beyond Attendance Data

We set out to better understand the relationship between students’ social-emotional growth and their attendance. Using the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA) and attendance data from more than 8,000 middle school students, we investigated whether changes in students’ social-emotional skills over the school year were associated with chronic absenteeism.

To do this, we compared students who showed meaningful growth on the DESSA with similar peers matched on baseline DESSA scores and demographic characteristics who did not show growth.

What we found was clear.

Students who showed meaningful growth in their social-emotional skills were about half as likely to be chronically absent as similar students who did not show that growth. This pattern held even for students who began the year with social-emotional scores indicating a need for support. Those who improved over time were still less likely to be chronically absent. Read the full study.

Why Social-Emotional Growth Matters

Middle school is a pivotal time. Students are navigating more complex academic demands, peer relationships, and increasing independence. It’s also a time when absenteeism tends to rise.

Social-emotional skills can shape how students experience school. When students feel capable and connected, school can feel more manageable and meaningful.

While prior research has shown that students’ social-emotional skill levels are strongly related to absenteeism, our findings suggest that growth in those skills over time may also play an important role.

Understanding the Broader Context

We are not suggesting that social and emotional learning (SEL) is a solution to absenteeism on its own.
Attendance is shaped by a complex mix of factors that includes economic challenges, health, transportation, and systemic inequities. We focused on SEL because it is one area schools are well-positioned to support.

At the same time, it is important to consider other interpretations of these findings. Do students attend more because their social-emotional skills are growing or do they develop those skills because they are attending more consistently?

Our study helps address this by comparing students who started with similar SEL scores, but it cannot fully disentangle these possibilities. The relationship between social-emotional development and attendance is likely reciprocal. Students who are in school more have more opportunities to build social-emotional skills, just as stronger skills may support more consistent attendance.

In this way, attendance and social-emotional development likely reinforce one another. Understanding how they interact is an important next step for research and practice.

What This Means for Schools, Educators, and Researchers

Our findings point to several practical considerations for educators:

• Monitor social-emotional growth. 
• Embed SEL into daily instruction. 
• Use data to identify students whose growth is stalled. 
• Create environments where students feel known, supported, and capable. 

These findings also point to important questions for educators and researchers:

• How can schools create the conditions that support students’ social-emotional growth over time?
• What practices or supports are most closely associated with that growth?
• And, how might those efforts fit alongside broader strategies to address the many factors that influence attendance?

As schools continue to address chronic absenteeism, understanding how social-emotional development and school engagement intersect may be an important part of the path forward.

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

Evelyn Johnson, Ed.D. is the Vice President of Research at Riverside Insights, where she leads a team of researchers and psychometricians to create assessments and conduct research that leads to clear insights and better outcomes for students. She is an author of the DESSA-2 and the DESSA Student Self-Report.

Emily Taylor is a Senior Research Associate at Riverside Insights whose work focuses on advancing research and evaluation initiatives related to social-emotional competence and human development. She specializes in translating research into actionable insights that support effective educational practices, equitable outcomes, and meaningful community impact.

Jennifer Robitaille is the Director, Research & Development at Riverside Insights. Her work focuses on strength-based approaches to measuring and promoting social and emotional competence and resilience in students. She is an author of the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA) suite for grades K–12. Her primary research interests include the measurement of social and emotional competence, effective strategies for developing social and emotional competence, and the promotion of educator well-being.

Related Posts

• Let’s Make Schools Places Where Students Want to Be
• My Commitment to Building a Connected Community in Middle School
• The SEL Paradox in Middle School: What Every Educator Needs to Know

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