Social-emotional Climate Research Articles

Retention in Junior Giants, a sport-based youth development program: what factors are associated with intentions to return?

While evaluation research shows that physical activity-based youth development (PA-PYD) programs can have a positive impact on social and emotional growth, less is known about which participants return year after year and what factors are associated with their continued participation. The Junior Giants is a sport-based youth development program for 5-18-year-old boys and girls that is non-competitive and free to participate. The 8-week program uses baseball and softball as platforms for teaching life skills and fostering social emotional competencies. This mixed-methods study evaluated quantitative factors associated with intentions to return to the program the following year and qualitative reasons why parents/caregivers intended not to re-enroll their child. Parents/caregivers of Junior Giants participants (N = 8,495) completed online surveys about their child's demographics, social emotional climate and learning, character development, and intentions to return the following year. Descriptive data illustrated that parents/caregivers reported quite positive outcomes and experiences for their child. Chi-square and t-test analyses revealed significant differences (p < .001) between intended returners (n = 7,179, 84.5%) and those who reported no/undecided on returning (n = 1,316, 15.5%). Intended returners were significantly more likely to be identified as Latino and be in their second year of participation. Significant predictors of a binomial logistic regression [χ2 (df = 22) = 1,463.25, p < .001] included age, race/ethnicity, years played, character development, reading, league experiences, physical activity, and perceived support, with small to medium effect sizes. Using responses from a subset of 217 parents/caregivers who reported their child would not return to the program, a thematic analysis resulted in seven themes: Lack of Organization and Communication; Dissatisfied with Coaching, Didn't Learn Baseball/Softball, Not Competitive Enough, Skill Levels Not Matched, Aged Out, and Non-Program Related Reasons. Quantitative results contribute to the literature on predictors of retention in youth development programs, while qualitative findings echo common motives cited for dropout in youth sport. Both provide opportunities for reflection and potential changes to future programming.

Fostering an affiliative environment in residential youth care: A cluster randomized trial of a compassionate mind training program for caregivers enrolling youth and their caregivers

BackgroundAffiliation has a positive role on well-being and human development. Most children and youth living in residential youth care (RYC) experienced maltreatment from significant others, becoming a particularly vulnerable group. Their complex needs require well trained caregivers who help them to heal and thrive. ObjectiveThis cluster randomized trial sought to test the Compassionate Mind Training program for Caregivers (CMT- Care Homes) effectiveness on affiliative outcomes across time. Participants and settingA sample of 127 professional caregivers and 154 youth from 12 Portuguese residential care homes (RCH) participated on this study. MethodsRCHs were randomized to treatment (n = 6) and control (n = 6) groups. Caregivers and youth completed self-report measures at baseline, post-intervention, and 6-month follow-up on social safeness and emotional climate. Caregivers were also evaluated on compassion outcomes. ResultsMANCOVA indicated large multivariate time X group effects. Univariate results suggested that caregivers from the treatment group showed improvements in compassion towards others and in self-compassion across time, while the control group gradually deteriorated in both variables. Youth and caregivers from the treatment group noticed a more soothing and safer RCH emotional climate, as well as feeling safer within relationships. At 6-month follow-up, improvements were retained by caregivers, but not by youth. ConclusionsThe CMT- Care Homes brings a new model to RYC, that represents a promising approach in promoting safe relationships and affiliative environments in RCHs. Supervision should be provided to monitor care practices and sustain change across time.

Social-emotional classroom climate and academic achievement for Chinese elementary students: The roles of convergent and divergent thinking

This study aims to explore the effects of the social-emotional classroom climate on academic achievement in mathematics and literature for elementary students in grades 3 through 6. The research specifically focuses on the indirect role of creative thinking (convergent and divergent thinking). Structural equation modeling techniques were used to examine data collected from 1365 Chinese elementary students. The results indicate that in mathematics and literature classrooms, (1) the social-emotional climate had a positive effect on school achievement, and (2) divergent and convergent thinking play indirect roles between social-emotional climate and academic achievement. The findings suggest that elementary students’ positive perception of social-emotional classroom climate, including the perceptions of teacher support and student cohesiveness, can promote divergent and convergent thinking and ultimately contribute to the output of academic achievement in mathematics and literature.

Commentary: Vulnerable children-A global perspective.

In this commentary, we discuss the global similarities in the intersections of poverty, disability, and learning, and share lessons that are being learned internationally that can inform U.S. domestic research and implementation. These lessons cover multiple aspects of learning and development, instructional materials and approaches, integration of social emotional and school climate considerations, and engagement of families and communities.

Youth Participatory Action Research as a Catalyst for Health Promotion in a Rural South African School

Rural schools in South Africa face many social and environmental challenges which impact negatively on learner wellbeing and performance. Given the severity and history of these problems, the situation is unlikely to change in the near future. Yet, schools are supposed to be enabling environments, providing holistic support to learners from communities plagued by severe economic, health and social challenges. A different strategy is clearly needed to promote the health and wellbeing of learners. Youth participatory action research (YPAR) appears to offer a plausible approach to kick start improved, health-promoting responses from within the school. We facilitated a YPAR process with volunteer learners from Grade10 to find out how they could begin to transform their rural school. Using arts-based methods, the learners were successful in raising awareness of the negative effects they were suffering as a result of the poor social-emotional climate in the school, the unsanitary facilities and the lack of opportunities to engage in physical exercise. The actions they took to address these issues were a catalyst for ongoing positive change in the school. The findings add to literature about how YPAR can make schools more enabling spaces.

Belonging and Social Integration as Factors of Well-Being in Latin America and Latin Europe Organizations.

BackgroundStudies and meta-analyses found individual, meso and micro-social factors that are associated with individual well-being, as well as a positive socio-emotional climate or collective well-being.AimThis article simultaneously studies and examines these factors of well-being.MethodWell-Being is measured as a dependent variable at the individual and collective level, as well as the predictors, in three cross-sectional and one longitudinal studies. Education and social intervention workers (N = 1300, K = 80) from Chile, Spain and Uruguay participate; a subsample of educators (k = 1, n = 37) from the south central Chile and from Chile, Uruguay and Spain (n = 1149); workers from organizations in Latin America and Southern Europe, military cadets from Argentina (N < 1000); and teams (K = 14) from Spanish companies.ResultsIndividual and collective well-being indicators were related, suggesting that the emotional climate as a context improves personal well-being. Individual factors (emotional creativity and openness and universalism values), psychosocial factors (low stress, control over work and social support supervisors and peers) were positively associated with personal well-being in education and social intervention context. Organizational dynamic or transformational culture is directly and indirectly associated with individual well-being through previously described psychosocial factors. Group processes such as internal communication and safe participation, task orientation or climate of excellence as well as leadership style that reinforces participation and belonging, were positively associated with collective well-being in labor and military context and predict team work socio-emotional climate in a longitudinal study- but were unrelated to individual well-being. Transformational leadership plays a mediating role between functional factors and social-emotional climate in work teams. Organizational role autonomy, functional organizational leadership, integration and resources were associated with collective well-being in organizations. Organizational leadership moderates the relationship between task orientation and collective well-being in military context.ConclusionIndividual and microsocial factors influence personal well-being. Meso level factors favorable to well-being through processes which reinforce social belonging, influence directly collective well-being and indirectly personal well-being. Leadership that reinforces participation and belonging play a central role for emotional climate. Stress and emotional climate playing an important pivotal role for psychological well-being.

The School-Based Mental Health Collaboration (SBMHC): A Multi-Level University-School Partnership

ABSTRACTThis article describes The School-Based Mental Health Collaboration (SBMHC), a novel school-based mental health partnership between Teachers College, Columbia University, and several high-poverty public grade schools in New York City. SBMHC is grounded in attachment and mentalization theory and practice. It applies nested mentalization to multilevel work with all school stakeholders, encouraging school leaders, faculty, staff, and parents to use mentalization with children, many of whom have experienced trauma. Graduate students serve as classroom consultants (CC), spending a half day per week in the classroom observing, doing push-in interventions, co-teaching a social-emotional learning curriculum, coaching the teacher, and making referrals for children. CCs follow up on referrals and coordinate among parents, teachers, and off-site providers. The CCs in turn receive weekly didactics and reflective clinical supervision. SBMHC works with school leaders to assess the school’s social-emotional climate, identify unmet need for mental health services, and locate low-cost providers in the community. SBMHC is a promising model that aims to enhance social-emotional learning for all students while also identifying and referring symptomatic students. It thus combines universal and targeted approaches to serving high-risk students at low-resourced schools.

Social Emotional Climate and Social Well-being in a Sample of Public Transport Users of the Southern Zone of Greater Buenos Aires

Social Emotional Climate was developed by De Rivera (1992), as the presence of collective emotions generated in a determined temporal and socio-economic context, broadening the approach that emotions are felt in an individual way only. The aim of this research was to investigate the levels of Emotional Social Climate and Social Well-being in public transport users, and if there are differences between the context of the different transports and the relation between the above mentioned variables. In order to verify this associations, a sample of 300 public transport users was selected, with 149 bus passengers and 151 train users who travel from the Southside of Great Buenos Aires, to Buenos Aires City. The average age of the sample was 35.57 (SD 10.64, Minimum: 18 Maximum: 68). The study was quantitative, correlational and differential with groups. The instruments used to assess these variables were the Scale of Social Emotional Climate (CE, De Rivera, 1992) and the Scale of Social Well-being (Keyes, 1998) in its Spanish version translated by Blanco and Diaz (2005). The results indicate a Negative Emotional Climate in general, but more representative rail users. In addition differences are observed in the dimensions of Social Well-being, presenting a better perception of it those who do not use the train as their transportation of preference. On the other hand, in the Emotional Climate and Social Well-being influence the different transport schedules used, people’s activities during the trip and the reason why each medium is chosen.

Do child gender and temperament moderate associations between Head Start classroom social-emotional climate and children’s social-emotional competencies?

Little research has examined teachers' classroom social-emotional practices, including how teachers' warmth and their more explicit emotion socialization practices may be associated with children's social-emotional competencies in different but complementary ways. Likewise, there is scant knowledge on how the effects of the classroom climate may vary by child characteristics. We examined the moderating roles of child gender and temperament in the associations between two aspects of the classroom climate, Head Start teachers' warmth and their explicit emotion socialization practices, and preschoolers' (N = 611) social-emotional competencies, including emotion recognition, self-regulation, and positive social behaviors. While no three-way interactions (teachers' warmth and teachers' emotion socialization practices × child gender × temperament) were significantly associated with outcomes, a two-way interaction between teachers' emotion socialization practices and temperament was significant. Specifically, teachers' emotion socialization practices in the fall were associated with greater self-regulation for all children in the spring, including children with more reactive temperaments although effects were most robust for children with the least reactive temperaments. Implications for teacher practices are discussed.

Family and Neighborhood Influences on Meeting College Expectations in Emerging Adulthood

This study examined how family socioeconomic status and social emotional climate together with neighborhood affluence predict the probability that college attainment in emerging adulthood (20–26 years old) matched college expectations reported during adolescence. Using three waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent and Adult Health ( n = 7,213, 54% female, 53% White, 21% Black, 15% Hispanic, 11% other), results from multilevel multinomial logistic models reported direct and positive effects of neighborhood and family affluence on the probability that college attainment in emerging adulthood matched or exceeded the expectations reported during adolescence. Family cohesion was associated with lower odds of overachievement. An interaction effect revealed that parents’ educational expectations were more strongly associated with college achievement outcomes in higher income families. Understanding how families and neighborhoods predict college achievement can help institutions focus on methods of intervention to best support the transition to adulthood.

Creating a Positive Social-Emotional Climate in Your Elementary Physical Education Program

Creating a positive social-emotional climate must be the backbone of a quality elementary physical education program. The need to belong, have friends, and feel emotionally safe are basic needs everyone has, but meeting these needs in the classroom can be challenging at times. Strategies regarding how to implement a positive social-emotional climate, examples, and reasons for its importance will be provided in this article.

The Instructional Process: A Review of Flanders’ Interaction Analysis in a Classroom Setting

Interaction Analysis is a technique for capturing quantitative and qualitative dimensions of teacher verbal behaviour in the classroom. As an observational system, it captures the verbal behaviour of teachers and students that is directly related to the social – emotional climate of the classroom. It was developed by Ned Flanders out of Social Psychological Theory and was designed to test the effect of social emotional climate on students’ attitudes and learning. The theoretical assumptions of Interaction Analysis (IA) are that in a normal classroom situation, verbal communication is predominant; the teacher exerts a great deal of influence on the student and the student’s behaviour is affected to a great extent by this type of teacher behaviour exhibited. Flanders’ ten category system that attempts to categorize all the verbal behaviour to be found in the classroom is explored in this paper. The objective is the advocacy for the adoption of FIAC in the instructional process in our public schools, since the quantity and quality of teacher – student interaction is a critical dimension of effective classroom teaching and enhanced learning.

A study of teacher formative influence upon and student experience of social–emotional learning climate in secondary school music settings

Conceiving the construct ‘social-emotional learning climate’ as an embodiment of Illeris’ contemporary learning theory, this paper serves dual purposes. First, it examines recent music education literature, which identifies issues of competence and institutionalised pedagogic practice in secondary school music settings that result in adolescents’ inability to target and develop personal locus of control over learning, and the subsequent rejection of the learning environment. Second, it details findings, discussion and pedagogic implications from the author's dissertation study exploring music teacher formative influence upon and student experience of Illeris’ theory of learning process within three Canadian secondary school learning settings integrating informal learning practices.

Social identity and emotional climate in a rural community of Peru: an empirical study

Social identity and emotional climate in a rural community of Peru: an empirical study

Social identity and emotional climate in a rural community of Peru: an empirical study

The aim of this paper is to describe how the social identity and the emotional climate relate to each other in a rural community, assuming that both constructs are psychological indicators of a healthy collective functioning and that they are somehow affected by the social and political situation of the in-group. For this purpose, a research was undertaken in a rural community of 200 households, where 80 villagers were surveyed. The results suggest that a climate of confidence plays a central role in the constitution of collective identification. They also show that, the greater the perception of this climate is, the more a positive collective self-stereotype, and a greater valuation of belonging to the community, predominate. On the other hand, a climate of low confidence weakens the identification with the community to the extent that it is associated to a lesser valuation and negative self-stereotypical beliefs regarding the community members.

Shift climate profiles and correlates in acute psychiatric inpatient units

Inpatient psychiatric units are dynamic in nature, potentially creating a different treatment experience for each person, which may be difficult to quantify. Among the goals of this multi-centre service evaluation project was an assessment of shift-to-shift changes in unit-level events and their impact on the social-emotional environment. Over 1 year, various nurse-completed logs were used within the 11 participating Australian psychiatric units (n = 5,546 admissions) to record patient- and unit-level events per shift, including ratings of the overall social-emotional climate using a novel shift climate ratings (SCR) scale (n = 8,176 shifts). These were combined with admission-level patient characteristics to investigate shift climate profiles and correlates. Occupancy rates averaged 88% and two-thirds of admissions were involuntary. The psychometric performance of the SCR scale was considered to be satisfactory (e.g., high internal consistency, unidimensional factor structure, and evidence of discriminant and predictive validity). A series of hierarchical regressions revealed considerable variation in SCR total scores, with poorer climates being significantly associated with: day/afternoon shifts; higher occupancy levels; higher proportions of experienced staff, and male, older, or involuntary patients; higher rates of less serious aggressive incidents; reporting of additional staffing demands; and unit location in a stand-alone psychiatric hospital. The day-to-day social-emotional climate can have important consequences for patient engagement and recovery. Improved understanding of the role played by unit, staff and patient characteristics, together with routine monitoring, should facilitate the development and evaluation of targeted interventions to reduce adverse incidents and improve the overall social-emotional climate.

Impacto de la violencia colectiva en la salud. Resultados del estudio ISAVIC en el País Vasco

Objectives Despite the ubiquity of violence and its possible impact on individual and collective health, the role and causal pathways of this phenomenon as a health determinant have not been widely studied. The present study was conducted between 2005 and 2008 in the Basque Region of Spain and aimed to estimate the health effects of collective violence on its primary victims. Methods A purposive sample of 33 primary victims (direct victims of collective violence and the first degree relatives of murder victims) was matched (1:5 ratio) with a random selection of persons drawn from a representative sample of the population aged more than 16 years old living in the Basque Region. Matching criteria were age, sex, educational level and province of residence. All participants completed a questionnaire that included health status measures (WHO-DAS-II-12, GHQ-12, SF-12, loneliness and stigma scales) and other potentially mediating variables such as social support and emotional climate. The results were assessed by regression analysis conditional to exposure to collective violence. Results The odds of perceiving worse physical and emotional health were 4 to 7 times higher among primary victims than among the general population and were 8 times higher for experiencing functional disability. Primary victims also perceived more loneliness and stigma and negatively valued their social support and emotional climate. No significant impact was found among the general population with some experience of interpersonal violence. Conclusions These results suggest that collective violence is associated with substantial impairment in health status. More specific studies to assess the health effects of collective violence in the general population are warranted.

Providing a Secure Environment for Students with Emotional Problems

Effective middle schools are secure places. One of the most evident qualities of the social-emotional climate is that students feel safe in school—safe not only from physical harm but also from psychological and emoti nal harm and abus . (Johnston & Ramos de Perez, 1992, p.24) Students with emotional and behavior disorders need a secure envi ronment that is conducive to learning. The environment has a direct effect on all students, but students with spe cial needs are more vulnerable to the environment than most regular education students. Establishing a secure environment can have a direct bearing on how the stu dents behave in class. According to Gallagher (1994), A good or bad environment promotes good or bad memo ries, which inspire a good or bad mood, which inclines us toward good or bad behavior. We needn't even be con sciously aware of a pleasant or unpleasant environmental stimulus for it to shape our state (p. 132). The challenge is to develop an environment that is secure and invites learning for both regular education students and stu dents with special emotional and behavioral needs. How do schools provide this environment? The program for students with emotional or behav ioral disorders (EBDs) at Northdale Middle School has a number of features which are designed to promote a secure, inviting environment that meets the emotional and psychological needs of its students. These features are:

Family Environment and Family Day Care

Forty-four family day-care providers participated in a study of the relationships between the of the day-care program, the level of cognitive stimulation in the caregivers' home, and the social-emotional climate of the caregiver's own family life. Data were collected using Caldwell and Bradley's (1979) Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) Scale; Moos's (1986) Family Environment Scale (FES); and Harms, Clifford, and Padan-Belkin's (1983) Day Care Home Environment Rating Scale (DCHERS). HOME and DCHERS scores were highly correlated and yielded a total quality score in subsequent factor analyses. HOME, DCHERS, and the Quality scores all correlated highly with FES subscales on Organization, Independence, Active-Recreational, and Intellectual-Cultural orientations. The implications of these findings for day-care providers, trainers, and consultants to caregivers and parents are discussed. Family day care is the most widely used and least researched form of child care in North America. Within this narrow research base, studies have focused on either the programmatic of the day-care experience, or selected aspects of the family day-care provider's own family life. There have been few attempts, however, to systematically examine the relationship between the program and the family life of the provider. In this article a research study is reported which examined (a) the level of cognitive stimulation available to children in the family day-care home, (b) aspects of the social and emotional dynamics of the caregiver's own family, and (c) the of the day-care program. The article discusses the implications of these findings for family day-care providers; professionals involved in training, licensing, and consulting with family day-care providers; and parents in their search for and selection of family day-care homes for their children. As an ecological niche, family day care occupies a unique and ambiguous position. As a home environment it represents a setting reflecting the needs and uses of family life. The members of the family are involved in a system of relationships with one another; the system itself must accommodate the demands of time, logistics, work, play, study, and all of the other features and pressures of family life. In addition, the home is expected to meet the needs of up to six unrelated children who are cared for, in the vast majority of cases, by the mother in the family. The day-care function places additional demands upon the family: Space must be organized in specific ways, certain age-appropriate materials must be present, the day-care provider's time must be organized around the, at times, competing demands of family life and day care. Until now, quality in family day care has almost always been defined in the literature as referring to the quality of the day-care program itself, with little reference to the variability and vagaries of family life within which the day-care function is situated. A major question addressed in this study, then, is how to reconceptualize in family day care to include the relationships between the day-care program and the cognitive and social dimensions of family life. There is far more information in the research literature on the effects of the cognitive and social environments of children's own-home environments than on the cognitive and social environments of family day-care environments. Level of cognitive stimulation is generally defined as both the availability of certain materials in the home environment, such as children's books, toys, and puzzles, and the frequency of certain kinds of activities and interactions, such as adult-child

The Lewin Legacy: Field Theory in Current Practice

I: Lewin, then and now.- Approach as a description of the nature of scientific activity: Some reflections and suggestions.- Kurt Lewin and American psychology: An ambivalent relationship.- Lewin's sphere of influence from Berlin.- The man in transition: Kurt Lewin and his times.- Kurt Lewin's influence on social emotional climate research in Germany and the United States.- Theoretical positions of Kurt Lewin and Egon Brunswick - controversial or complementary points of view?.- Lewin and current developmental theory.- Lewin and social science: A theoretical note.- II: Practical Theory.- A. Therapy-mental health-interpersonal relations.- Kurt Lewin's influence on the field of mental health.- Understanding enrichment and therapy in marriage: The legacy of Kurt Lewin.- Lewinian theory in clinical practice.- Kurt Lewin: Intergroup relations and applications in current action research.- Application of Lewin's life space concept to the individual and group-as-a-whole systems in group psychotherapy.- B. Education.- Action research as a guiding principle in an educational curriculum: The Lincoln University Master's Program in Human Services.- Kurt Lewin's influence on business education.- Children in cooperation and competition: The role of entitlement and deservedness.- Participants as consultants to themselves.- C. Organizational and human resources development.- The quality circle phenomenon.- Using graduate students as consultants to teach action research to residence hall staff.- Teaching force field analysis: A suggested training design.- Utilizing Lewinian principles for an institutional planning process within a medical school.- Organizational processes in a University department: A report of an action research and organizational development project.- D. Community psychology and community action.- Environmental psychology and action research: Lewin's legacy.- Community action research in North Philadelphia.- Report of an action research project: The Hunting Park community leaders survey - problems and prospects for park preservation.- A practical theory for optimal intergroup-initiated encounters: The Arab-Jewish case.- E. Research lines.- Support, reference, and gatekeeping functions within the interpersonal field: Lewin contributions.- A continuation of Lewinian research in the study of cooperation and competition.- New paradigm research.- A neo-Lewinian action research method.- The effects of affirmative action on minority persons: Research in the Lewinian tradition.