Nurturing Social and Emotional Learning Across the Globe

Executive summary

The Survey on Social and Emotional Skills (SSES) 2023 is an international survey of students’ social and emotional skills at ages 10 and 15.

Volume I, Social and Emotional Skills for Better Lives, showed how skills such as persistence, empathy, curiosity, creativity and assertiveness matter for key outcomes and how these skills differ by age and student background.

This publication, Volume II, points to significant differences between and within participating countries and subnational entities (hereafter, “sites”) in how social and emotional skills are promoted in school, at home, and by society, as well as how this relates to differences in skills. The findings presented in this volume support key recommendations for improving policies and practices to better promote socio-emotional learning in three areas.

Social and emotional education in school

• Enhance teacher feedback, particularly on students’ strengths: Students who received more teacher feedback reported higher social and emotional skills. However, teacher feedback needs to be improved, especially in developing students’ strengths. This is particularly important for 15-year-olds and girls. Teachers of 15-year-olds in Delhi (India), Dubai (United Arab Emirates, UAE) and Jinan (People’s Republic of China, hereafter “China”) provide more feedback than teachers in other sites.

• Increase the opportunities teachers provide for social and emotional learning: Few teachers provide opportunities for students to learn how to regulate emotions and engage with others; most focus on developing skills related to task performance. Only in Bogotá (Colombia), Delhi (India), Kudus (Indonesia) and Peru did over 80% of teachers provide ample learning opportunities to regulate emotions and engage with others.

• Leverage digital technologies: Most teachers perceived online teaching as a challenge for social and emotional learning. Peru was the only education system where most teachers saw opportunities rather than challenges.

• Boost teacher preparedness: Tasks related to social and emotional teaching were among the tasks that teachers, particularly in lower secondary, felt least capable of and lacked training in. More training was provided in Delhi (India), Dubai (UAE), Jinan (China) and Kudus (Indonesia). Only 52% of teachers of 15-year-olds drew extensively on official resources, while 32% used informal resources. The use of official resources was more widespread in Bulgaria, Delhi (India), Peru and Ukraine.

• Create structures and mindsets that promote social and emotional learning: The formal integration of teaching social and emotional skills into general practices and teaching across subjects is very common across sites. However, between one and eight in ten students attended schools where not all teachers and principals agreed that these skills could be taught. A shared mindset of the wide-ranging impact of social and emotional skills was even less common. A shared mindset on the teachability of social and emotional skills was more common in Emilia-Romagna and Turin (Italy), Helsinki (Finland) and Spain, and about teachers’ responsibility in Dubai (United Arab Emirates), Helsinki (Finland) and Kudus (Indonesia).

• Support extra-curricular activities: Engagement in extra-curricular activities was positively related to all social and emotional skills in students aged 10 and 15. However, only a third (or less) of 15-year-olds engage regularly in different extra-curricular activities. In most sites, even fewer disadvantaged students and girls do so.

School environments that nurture socio-emotional growth

• Build schools into hubs of community: Students who felt greater belonging and more positive than negative emotions at school reported higher social and emotional skills, particularly in terms of their social and emotional regulation skills.

• Address site-specific sources of negative emotions: Students report different mixes of emotions in each site, especially confidence, motivation, anxiety and anger. In Ukraine and Spain, students report high confidence but low motivation. In Italian sites, students are more anxious than motivated.

• Improve experiences of disadvantaged groups: Low-performing 15-year-olds and girls report lower sense of belonging, fewer positive and more negative emotions than their peers in almost all sites. Low performers also struggle with anger and girls with confidence. Disadvantaged 15-year-olds report less belonging in most sites, but not worse happiness, motivation or anxiety.

• Promote relationships to promote skills: Students reporting better relationships with teachers and peers report higher social and emotional skills. Teacher relationships are more associated with task performance, curiosity, optimism, and tolerance, while peer relationships correlate with stronger social skills and trust. However, 15-year-olds perceive less concern from their classmates and teachers than 10-year-olds.

• Enhance teachers’ coping strategies to support their well-being and ability to model positive emotional regulation: In Kudus (Indonesia) and Peru, almost 70% of teachers report high use of effective stress-coping strategies, compared to only around 30% in other sites.

• Address bullying: Many students are both victims and perpetrators of bullying. On average, around 67% of perpetrators said they had been bullied, while approximately 40% of victims also report bullying other students. The highest level of overlap between bullying perpetration and victimisation was seen in Bulgaria and Delhi (India).

• Complement bullying prevention with socio-emotional learning: Both victims and perpetrators tend to have lower responsibility, emotional control and trust than students not involved in bullying. Victims, including those who also engage in bullying, have lower optimism and stress resistance. Victims who do not engage in bullying distinguish themselves from perpetrators through higher empathy.

Addressing gender equity

• Tackle gender stereotypes: Many boys, especially in Bulgaria, Dubai (UAE), Helsinki (Finland), Kudus (Indonesia) and Ukraine, believe leadership and access to economic resources are more important for men than women.

• Promote gender equity at home: Students in homes with shared responsibilities reported fewer gender stereotypes and greater tolerance, trust, emotional regulation and task performance skills. However, domestic tasks are more often the responsibility of female family members, particularly in Bulgaria, Delhi (India), Dubai (UAE), Gunma (Japan) and Kudus (Indonesia).

• Encourage diverse careers pursuits: Among students with similarly high levels of curiosity and math skills, boys are twice as likely as girls to expect careers in science and technology instead of health. Results suggest that tackling gender stereotypes can be one way forward in certain sites: girls disagreeing that boys are better at technology are more likely to pursue careers in science and technology in Peru, Spain and Ukraine.

• Strengthen school-family partnerships: Data from Bogotá (Colombia), Peru and Ukraine show that most parents see skills such as persistence and emotional regulation as important for their child’s development as literacy and numeracy. Parents are more likely to view themselves as responsible for their child's social and emotional learning compared to how they perceive the responsibility of students or teachers.

Infographic 1. SSES 2023 key results [1/2]

Infographic 2. SSES 2023 key results [2/2]