This chapter explains why social and emotional skills matter while summarising findings from the first volume of the Survey on Social and Emotional Skills (SSES) 2023. It then describes how education systems are working to incorporate social and emotional learning. It further acknowledges that social and emotional learning occurs in all areas of students’ lives, in and outside school. Finally, it presents the general approach and outline of this volume.
Nurturing Social and Emotional Learning Across the Globe
Findings from the OECD Survey on Social and Emotional Skills 2023
Abstract
Social and emotional skills are the invisible skills that build the foundations of our society (Steponavičius, Gress-Wright and Linzarini, 2023[1]), that drive innovation and resilience in our economy and the cohesion between our communities in a world of increasing polarisation.
We live in a time of uncertainty – the COVID‑19 pandemic was a stark reminder that we cannot take anything for granted. The future, inherently unpredictable, will continue to surprise us. To navigate this world, we need to redouble our efforts to enhance sustainability, striving to maintain a delicate balance. Equally important is investing significantly more in young people, equipping them with crucial skills such as self-control, creativity and empathy. These abilities will be essential for them to thrive in an uncertain world.
Social and emotional skills are the skills that make us human, particularly in a world of artificial intelligence (AI). Many tasks that are easy to teach and to test have become easy to digitise and automate. As a result, the demand for skills necessary to perform routine tasks is diminishing, while there is a growing need for skills related to technology-intensive tasks. A recent OECD publication, Artificial Intelligence and the Changing Demand for Skills in the Labour Market (Green, 2024[2]), states that most workers exposed to AI will not require specialised AI skills (e.g. machine learning, natural language processing, etc.). The skills most demanded in occupations highly exposed to AI will be management and business skills. One can predict that having high levels of social and emotional skills, such as assertiveness, creativity and perseverance, will make a greater difference in the future job market. Another recent OECD report (2023[3]) showed that AI could potentially outperform large shares of the population on the OECD’s Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC): 90% of adults in literacy and 88% of adults in numeracy. According to experts, AI will solve all literacy and numeracy tests by 2026 (OECD, 2023[3]). This pushes us to think harder – how do we focus on skills that make us human, and not only on those that are easily digitalised?
The first volume of the Survey on Social and Emotional Skills (SSES) 2023 findings (OECD, 2024[4]) looked at the extent to which students can engage meaningfully with others, collaborate, manage themselves, be open and achieve things.
People often perceive academic results and social-emotional skills as opposing ends of a broad spectrum, competing for the allocation of student learning time. Findings from the first volume of SSES 2023 show that these skills are not in opposition. Students with greater social and emotional skills make better grades in school. Virtually any social and emotional skill that SSES measures is predictive of better grades in academic subjects. These positive relationships between skills and grades hold across any demographic group – for both 10 and 15-year-olds, for both girls and boys, and for both socio-economically advantaged or disadvantaged students. Social and emotional skills can unlock potential in any education system that administered the SSES, from Bulgaria to Peru, from Delhi (India) to Houston (United States). Not all skills predict academic achievement in the same way – some of them are stronger predictors (Steponavičius, Gress-Wright and Linzarini, 2023[1]). These include achievement motivation, persistence, curiosity and responsibility. Skills in the domain of emotional regulation matter, too: empathy, tolerance, emotional control and optimism.
The first volume of SSES 2023 findings also showed an important relationship between students’ social and emotional skills and well-being. Students who are better at regulating their emotions have higher levels of energy and trust and also tend to display healthier behaviours. They tend to show greater psychological well-being and are less worried about school and academic tests. Strengthening students’ social and emotional skills becomes a source of students’ well-being. It is a common belief that reducing ambitions for young people can alleviate their stress. However, this approach might inadvertently lower their potential achievements. Instead, the focus should be on enhancing their emotional resilience to help them navigate and overcome these challenges effectively.
One of the most striking results is that 15-year-olds report lower social and emotional skills levels than 10-year-olds, especially for trust, energy, optimism, creativity and curiosity. Children are born with an abundance of creativity and curiosity. Ten-year-olds often exhibit a natural curiosity, questioning everything they are told, experimenting with anything given to them, and demonstrating a willingness to learn, unlearn and relearn as their context changes. However, as they mature, they are compelled to conform to adult modes of thinking, which can result in diminished innate creativity. The decline in students’ social and emotional skills as students grow older is something education systems need to be cognisant of and work to reverse, as the skills of creativity and curiosity seed innovation and resilience in our societies. This decline is particularly strong in Asian education systems (Suzhou [People’s Republic of China, hereafter “China”], Jinan [China], Kudus [Indonesia] and Daegu [Korea]).
SSES 2023 findings from the 16 participating sites (6 countries and 10 subnational entities) also showed that not all students live healthy lives. Nearly 40% of students on average across sites skip breakfast most days; 35% do not eat fruit or vegetables most days; 31% exercise only once a week or less. Particularly worrying is the share of students who get fewer than eight hours of sleep most nights – nearly 60% on average across sites (this share rises for Gunma [Japan] at 80%).
Many 15-year-olds expect to complete a tertiary education degree and have a managerial or professional career. Young people who are more open-minded, have better task performance skills and more empathy have higher aspirations for the future. Students have career aspirations that align with their skills. While the causal sense of this relationship is unknown, a hypothesis is that societies that want more and better entrepreneurs may decide to invest in skills such as creativity, optimism, assertiveness and energy, which are found to be higher for students expecting to start a business.
In every education system, disadvantaged students have lower social and emotional skills than advantaged students. Socio-economic gaps are largest in creativity, tolerance, assertiveness, curiosity, sociability and empathy. This gap in social and emotional skills rises dramatically when considering students with increasing levels of socio-economic advantage. This gap can be explained by different access to social and emotional learning opportunities both in and outside school.
Many education systems have managed to close the gender gap in academic performance – on average, boys and girls perform more or less the same in mathematics and science, according to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), although disparities still exist at both the low and high ends of the performance spectrum (OECD, 2023[5]). Education systems have made significant efforts to give boys and girls similar learning opportunities.
The pattern is different when it comes to social and emotional skills. SSES 2023 findings reveal that boys report lower levels of tolerance and empathy; girls report lower levels of stress resistance and emotional control. Girls report lower levels of emotional regulation skills, energy and trust than boys at age 10, and these differences widen by age 15. Girls also report poorer levels of all health and well-being outcomes. Notably, the gaps between boys and girls in health and well-being outcomes are larger in some sites than others, so this cannot only be due to gender differences in developmental psychology.
Policy makers, teachers and parents need to be aware of these findings. What is not measured cannot be improved. The first volume of the SSES made visible what is invisible.
This second volume looks into what education systems, educational practitioners, parents and students currently do and what they can do to address some of the challenges unveiled by the first volume.
As social and emotional learning has gained traction among governments, education authorities and stakeholders, introducing and integrating social and emotional education has been increasingly recognised as a key goal for education systems.
To better understand how social and emotional learning is incorporated into education in general, this section analyses qualitative information about the 15 education systems of the 16 sites that participated in SSES 2023 (of note, Emilia-Romagna and Turin, the two Italian sites, are treated as one site – Italy – in this section).
First, social and emotional skills appear in the officially stated education goals (mission statements, strategy documents) of all sites participating in SSES 2023. This holds for both primary and secondary education levels. Social and emotional skills are formally embedded in more than one way in each education system. However, there are differences across sites in the way social and emotional skills appear in education systems. Embedding social and emotional skills in health and physical education is the most frequent approach reported by sites participating in SSES 2023 (Figure 1.1). It is also more common to embed social and emotional skills in formal curricula specifically targeted at these skills than in academic subjects. Interestingly, many education systems report embedding them in both academic and specific curricula. Dubai (United Arab Emirates), Jinan (China), Kudus (Indonesia) and Peru, for example, embed these skills in both curriculum types at both levels of education. Some sites reported additional ways of addressing these skills in their system beyond government documentation and requirements. Bogotá (Colombia) reported city-level initiatives to promote skills, Dubai (United Arab Emirates) includes them in school inspections, and Gunma (Japan) uses extra-curricular clubs as a primary way to promote these skills.
Number of education systems where social and emotional skills appear in the following official documents and structures
Source: OECD, SSES background questionnaire Table A1.1.
Second, in most sites, social and emotional skills appear most frequently in curriculum frameworks and standards. This suggests that social and emotional skills are part of the stated curriculum but not necessarily the attained curriculum. Social and emotional skills may not filter down well to students, as curriculum frameworks are often abstract to teachers and separate from their daily practice and needs. Notably, in two sites, social and emotional skills appear in student courses: in Delhi (India), as part of the Happiness Curriculum [see Box 1.1 in OECD (2024[4])] and in a “morality” class in Gunma’s primary schools in Japan (in which students learn about tolerance, empathy and patience). In one site only – Ukraine – social and emotional skills appear in teacher training standards published by the government.
Participating sites reported the social and emotional skills (or closely related concepts) covered in their official documents and components of their education system and at which education level (Figure 1.2). Almost all skills are covered by at least half of the education systems. Two skills are covered by all at both education levels: responsibility (in the domain of task performance) and co-operation (collaboration). In addition, quite a few skills are covered at nearly all sites, particularly at the secondary level of education, including creativity, tolerance, sociability and emotional control.
Number of education systems targeting each of the social and emotional skills assessed in the SSES in 2023
Source: OECD, SSES background questionnaire Table A1.1.
Not all education systems refer to these skills using the same terminology, as illustrated by Figure 1.2. For example, the skill of “responsibility”, covered in virtually all education systems, is referred to as “independence” in Kudus’ education system and “responsible decision making” in Peru, while “co‑operation” (also universally covered) is referred to as “teamwork” in Bulgaria, Chile and Peru, “collaboration” in Bogotá (Colombia), and as “gotong royong” which means “joint bearing of burdens” in Kudus (Indonesia). Different regions take different approaches to framing skills, resulting from different cultural contexts and value systems. Asian sites, e.g. Delhi (India) and Kudus (Indonesia), often refer to “value education” and “character education”, with clearer moral dimensions sometimes linked to desired national/citizen characteristics. Latin American sites often emphasise co‑operation and emotional management skills. They also link skills explicitly to democratic and collective priorities, such as peaceful co-existence (Bogotá [Colombia]) and stable democratic society based on diverse identities (Bogotá [Colombia], Chile and Peru).
Sites were also asked if some skills were particularly highlighted or emphasised in their education systems, and if so, which ones. Interestingly, there is no universal pattern across education systems, suggesting that the value attributed to each skill might depend on political contingencies related to the time period and/or on cultural differences across systems. A given skill is only emphasised in a few sites (Table 1.1). In particular, 5 of the 15 education systems (Chile, Bogotá [Colombia], Dubai [United Arab Emirates], Gunma [Japan] and Kudus [Indonesia]) emphasised tolerance; 4 (Bogotá [Colombia], Helsinki [Finland], Kudus [Indonesia] and Mexico) emphasised social skills – co-operation and/or sociability – and 3 (Bogotá [Colombia}, Helsinki [Finland] and Jinan [China]) emphasised creativity. Task performance skills are also emphasised in Helsinki (Finland) and Kudus (Indonesia).
Although education systems vary in their formal approaches to social and emotional learning, it remains a shared goal across all of them. This second volume of SSES 2023 findings aims to explore how this goal is translated and achieved in practice. It examines what actually occurs in classrooms, schools and beyond by analysing responses from students, teachers and school leaders. This comprehensive approach provides insights into students' environments both within and outside of school, offering a holistic view of implementing social and emotional learning.
Sites reporting the three most commonly emphasised skills, another skill, or none of the skills as particularly emphasised in their education system
Source: Sites’ responses to SSES background questionnaire.
This volume focuses on the social and emotional learning that takes place at school. However, it also recognises that social and emotional learning takes place in all areas of students’ lives: not only in classrooms, in school (outside of the classroom), but also at home and in local communities (Cantor et al., 2018[6]). This is why this report acknowledges the multiple opportunities that children and adolescents have to develop these skills (Figure 1.3).
This volume looks at three (horizontal) components. The first component – “Social and emotional education” – refers to the educational practices and policies enacted by different education practitioners and stakeholders to directly and, most often intentionally, develop social and emotional skills in students. The second and third (horizontal) components refer to wider experiences of youth that also influence social and emotional skill development. The second component focuses on what happens in school, and the third on what happens outside of school.
The volume further acknowledges students’ inclusion in different layers of education systems and society. It characterises the social and emotional learning instruction received by students in class from their teachers, the structures available to support teachers in school, as well as during their initial and in-service training. It describes factors affecting students’ social and emotional skill development, whether intentionally or not, such as family dynamics, the quality of students’ relations with their classmates, friends and teachers and students’ participation in extra-curricular activities. These factors offer valuable learning opportunities to develop these skills, particularly if they align with the goals pursued by the explicit social and educational instruction students receive.
This volume looks at various indicators that are at the core of key components of social and emotional learning. Figure 1.3 shows where each of these indicators is situated.
Source: Authors.
This volume is organised around the three horizontal components of Figure 1.3:
Chapter 2 describes the form and prevalence of teaching and schooling practices used to promote social and emotional learning in all SSES-participating sites. It covers the first component of Figure 1.3, describing the social and emotional education provided in classrooms and schools and how teachers are supported in this endeavour by their schools and teacher training systems.
Chapter 3 examines the schoolwide context that can influence students’ social and emotional skill development. It covers the second component of Figure 1.3, describing students’ experiences at school and their relations with other students and their teachers.
Chapter 4 examines family dynamics and how the wider cultural context influences students’ social representations of social and emotional skills, role models, and career aspirations. It covers the third component of Figure 1.3. Thanks to the inclusion of a special module on gender-related issues in the SSES 2023 student questionnaire, Chapter 4, which is more exploratory in nature, has a special focus on gender differences in social and emotional skills.
This volume also includes text boxes that feature interesting country case studies, showcasing practices and policies effective at developing students’ social and emotional skills.
Finally, the two volumes of survey results call for further research and studies into social and emotional skills and the contexts surrounding them. There are still some blank spaces in of Figure 1.3 and some boxes that need to be filled in. The next round of the survey plans to complete this evidence base by taking on new subjects. With the rise of artificial intelligence and social media in the lives of young people, it seems essential to be able to analyse how social and emotional skills can enable these technologies to be used responsibly and safely. Another important challenge is to gain a better understanding of teachers' own social and emotional skills and their knowledge in this area, as it is highly likely that they are directly linked to the social and emotional skills of their students.
Online tables for each chapter can be accessed via the StatLink.
References
[6] Cantor, P. et al. (2018), “Malleability, plasticity, and individuality: How children learn and develop in context”, Applied Developmental Science, Vol. 23/4, pp. 307-337, https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2017.1398649.
[2] Green, A. (2024), “Artificial intelligence and the changing demand for skills in the labour market”, OECD Artificial Intelligence Papers, No. 14, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/88684e36-en.
[4] OECD (2024), Social and Emotional Skills for Better Lives: Findings from the OECD Survey on Social and Emotional Skills 2023, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/35ca7b7c-en.
[3] OECD (2023), Is Education Losing the Race with Technology?: AI’s Progress in Maths and Reading, Educational Research and Innovation, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/73105f99-en.
[5] OECD (2023), PISA 2022 Results (Volume I): The State of Learning and Equity in Education, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/53f23881-en.
[1] Steponavičius, M., C. Gress-Wright and A. Linzarini (2023), “Social and emotional skills: Latest evidence on teachability and impact on life outcomes”, OECD Education Working Papers, No. 304, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/ba34f086-en.