This episode features a conversation with Rob Jagers, Vice President for Research at CASEL: The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning, the leading resource for the knowledge, practice and policy around SEL. From the start of his career to his current position, Rob has had a particular interest in the role SEL plays in the learning and development of young people of color, and how it can best be seen as used as a resource to promote racial equity.

Rob and Jason talk about how young people receive SEL in different ways, and which ways are more constructive and effective than others, how focusing on SEL for adults is just as important as for youth, why the field of education as a whole needs a new paradigm for research, and why CASEL formulated guidance for schools reopening in fall 2020 - after being shut down or remote since the spring - on the foundation of relationships. 

Note that Rob and Jason talked just before the start of the 2020-2021 school year, but the guidance on meaningfully using SEL is salient now and for the foreseeable future. 

Additional Readings and Resources:

• Reunite, Renew, Thrive: Social and Emotional Roadmap (SEL) for Reopening School from CASEL
• A Nation At Hope: Recommendations from the National Commission on Social, Emotional and Academic Development
• National Commission on Social, Emotional and Academic Development: A Research Agenda for the Next Generation by Stephanie Jones, Camille A. Farrington, Robert Jagers, and Marc Brackett, with Jennifer Kahn
• The Impact of Enhancing Students' Social and Emotional Learning: A Meta-Analysis of School-Based Universal Interventions by Joseph A. Dulak, Roger P. Weissberg, Allison B. Dymnicki, Rebecca D. Taylor, and Kriston B. Schellinger
• Transformative Social and Emotional Learning (SEL): Toward SEL in Service of Educational Equity and Excellence, by Robert J. Jagers, Deborah Rivas-Drake, & Brittney Williams