Socioemotional Skills Development in Highly Violent Contexts : Measurements and Impacts

Non-cognitive skills can determine socioeconomic success and the transmission of economic status across generations. Yet, evidence of cost-effective interventions that aim to develop these skills for at-risk youth living in highly violent contexts...

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Main Authors:	Dinarte Diaz, Lelys Ileana, Egana-delSol, Pablo, Martinez A., Claudia
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English
Published:	Washington, DC: World Bank 2022
Subjects:	DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH GROUP RISK-TAKING BEHAVIOR IMPROVING STUDENT OUTCOME PUBLIC POLICY PERSPECTIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERVENTIONS UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/573591646665166695/Socioemotional-Skills-Development-in-Highly-Violent-Contexts-Measurements-and-Impacts http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37109

id	okr-10986-37109
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-371092022-03-10T05:10:49Z Socioemotional Skills Development in Highly Violent Contexts : Measurements and Impacts Dinarte Diaz, Lelys Ileana Egana-delSol, Pablo Martinez A., Claudia DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH GROUP RISK-TAKING BEHAVIOR IMPROVING STUDENT OUTCOME PUBLIC POLICY PERSPECTIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERVENTIONS UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN Non-cognitive skills can determine socioeconomic success and the transmission of economic status across generations. Yet, evidence of cost-effective interventions that aim to develop these skills for at-risk youth living in highly violent contexts is still scarce. This paper experimentally studies the social-emotional learning and protection components of an After School Program (ASP) for teenagers in the most violent neighborhoods of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. By combining administrative records and data gathered on-site via computer from task-based games and AI-powered emotion detection algorithms, this paper measures the ASP's impacts on behavior, academic performance, and non-cognitive skills. To measure the learning component, 21 public schools were randomly assigned to extracurricular activities (Clubs), a psychology-based curriculum that aims to strengthen participants' character (Virtue), or a mindfulness and relaxation technique program (Mindful). To estimate the protection component, 8 schools were selected as pure controls with a propensity score approach. Results show that the net learning component improved behavior at school by 0.46 standard deviations and reduced a proxy for stress by 0.45 standard deviations relative to the Clubs only ASP. These results were driven by the Virtue curriculum. Although the protection component negatively impacts social-emotional skills, it is, on average, more effective for students with worse behavior at baseline, indicating that the ASP curriculum and the characteristics of the population served are key in designing policies aimed at improving students' behavior. 2022-03-09T19:07:34Z 2022-03-09T19:07:34Z 2022-03-07 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/573591646665166695/Socioemotional-Skills-Development-in-Highly-Violent-Contexts-Measurements-and-Impacts http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37109 English CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank Washington, DC: World Bank Policy Research Working Paper Publications & Research Latin America & Caribbean
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH GROUP RISK-TAKING BEHAVIOR IMPROVING STUDENT OUTCOME PUBLIC POLICY PERSPECTIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERVENTIONS UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN
spellingShingle	DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH GROUP RISK-TAKING BEHAVIOR IMPROVING STUDENT OUTCOME PUBLIC POLICY PERSPECTIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERVENTIONS UNACCOMPANIED CHILDREN Dinarte Diaz, Lelys Ileana Egana-delSol, Pablo Martinez A., Claudia Socioemotional Skills Development in Highly Violent Contexts : Measurements and Impacts
geographic_facet	Latin America & Caribbean
description	Non-cognitive skills can determine socioeconomic success and the transmission of economic status across generations. Yet, evidence of cost-effective interventions that aim to develop these skills for at-risk youth living in highly violent contexts is still scarce. This paper experimentally studies the social-emotional learning and protection components of an After School Program (ASP) for teenagers in the most violent neighborhoods of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. By combining administrative records and data gathered on-site via computer from task-based games and AI-powered emotion detection algorithms, this paper measures the ASP's impacts on behavior, academic performance, and non-cognitive skills. To measure the learning component, 21 public schools were randomly assigned to extracurricular activities (Clubs), a psychology-based curriculum that aims to strengthen participants' character (Virtue), or a mindfulness and relaxation technique program (Mindful). To estimate the protection component, 8 schools were selected as pure controls with a propensity score approach. Results show that the net learning component improved behavior at school by 0.46 standard deviations and reduced a proxy for stress by 0.45 standard deviations relative to the Clubs only ASP. These results were driven by the Virtue curriculum. Although the protection component negatively impacts social-emotional skills, it is, on average, more effective for students with worse behavior at baseline, indicating that the ASP curriculum and the characteristics of the population served are key in designing policies aimed at improving students' behavior.
format	Working Paper
author	Dinarte Diaz, Lelys Ileana Egana-delSol, Pablo Martinez A., Claudia
author_facet	Dinarte Diaz, Lelys Ileana Egana-delSol, Pablo Martinez A., Claudia
author_sort	Dinarte Diaz, Lelys Ileana
title	Socioemotional Skills Development in Highly Violent Contexts : Measurements and Impacts
title_short	Socioemotional Skills Development in Highly Violent Contexts : Measurements and Impacts
title_full	Socioemotional Skills Development in Highly Violent Contexts : Measurements and Impacts
title_fullStr	Socioemotional Skills Development in Highly Violent Contexts : Measurements and Impacts
title_full_unstemmed	Socioemotional Skills Development in Highly Violent Contexts : Measurements and Impacts
title_sort	socioemotional skills development in highly violent contexts : measurements and impacts
publisher	Washington, DC: World Bank
publishDate	2022
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/573591646665166695/Socioemotional-Skills-Development-in-Highly-Violent-Contexts-Measurements-and-Impacts http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37109
_version_	1764486574819508224

Socioemotional Skills Development in Highly Violent Contexts : Measurements and Impacts

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