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The field of Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) is at a moment where it is both lauded and scrutinized in schools. SEL, simply put, involves developing��self-awareness, self-control and interpersonal skills within��school curricula. The include an increase in��student emotional regulation and empathy, and the ability to��make better decisions, which, in turn, can lead to improved��test scores, grades and school attendance; increased postsecondary education readiness; and better mental health. With��schools grappling with learning loss (p. 27) and an increase��in student mental health issues caused by the COVID-19��pandemic, spending on SEL grew roughly 45% between��November 2019 and April 2021, according to a report by��Tyton Partners, an education consulting and investment firm.��

There has, however, been a backlash against teaching��these skills. Some critics say social-emotional learning is not��meant to be taught by teachers but is better left to parents.��Others have gone further, decrying SEL as a covert means��to teach public schoolchildren progressive perspectives on��race, gender and sexuality, leading some districts to eliminate SEL from their curriculum entirely.��

In all of it, the science of social-emotional learning is��still emerging, and that’s one of the goals of the USC Center��for Affective Neuroscience, Development, Learning and��Education (CANDLE), a ������̳ research center��founded and directed by Professor of Education, Psychology��& Neuroscience Mary Helen Immordino-Yang.��

Immordino-Yang didn’t like school as a kid. She was��always interested in the natural world—trying to understand��nature and humans’ role in it—but never felt as if she fit in at��school. Immordino-Yang studied developmental psychology,��lived in various countries after her undergraduate studies,��and worked with her hands building boats. Then she injured��her hand and found work as a science teacher in a struggling��district south of Boston.

It was there, in a classroom of refugee students from��all over the world, that she realized how fascinating the��problem of education is. “It was the area that I really had��always been looking for,” Immordino-Yang says. “It was a��problem that was about developmental psychology and the��development of mind, but it was also deeply cultural and��social, with real-world complexities and implications, unlike��what I was seeing in the developmental psychology lab.”��

Immordino-Yang, the Fahmy and Donna Attallah Chair��in Humanistic Psychology at ������̳, has found a way��to funnel her varied background into a unique and emerging��field. CANDLE, founded in 2020, integrates research on��neuroscience, education and psychology to create a new��understanding of development and teaching.��

What schools get wrong about social-emotional learning��

CANDLE’s work often focuses on social-emotional learning, which can be a problematic concept, Immordino-Yang��says. It suggests that some kinds of learning are social-emotional, and then the rest of learning is just regular cognitive��stuff—which isn’t the case. Succeeding in a math class, for��example, takes perseverance, risk-taking, relationship-building and attitude. “We are always deeply social and emotional��in everything we think about. We think because we want��to; we think because it matters,” she says. “Those are emotional drives.”��

Immordino-Yang also says there is a lot of thought about��developmental appropriateness in preschools and elementary schools, but little thought about it in middle and high��schools. Schools “are deeply inappropriate in the way [they]��design around kids’ biological and psychosocial needs for��growth,” she says. That’s the other reason she studies adolescents: “because I really want to understand how we [can]��meaningfully innovate in the secondary education space.”��

The center works to connect brain science to classroom��science, by using developmental affective neuroscience to��guide the transformation of schools, policy, and the student��and teacher experience, with a focus on middle and high��school students. Around 10 researchers at CANDLE conduct transdisciplinary studies on teachers and students—for��example, as they graded student��work in an MRI machine to show that teachers who think��about their role more complexly may have a more consistent��pattern of engaging with their students’ work.��

They are also working on longitudinal studies of brain��development on inner-city, low-socio-economic-status��youth from immigrant families throughout Los Angeles��County, Immordino-Yang says. The team has conducted��extensive qualitative interviews with the kids over several years, and, via the MRI scanner, they have looked��at their brain development and functioning as the youth��are making sense of complex social stories in real time.��The results show that beyond IQ , socioeconomic status��or their parents’ education level, brain development can��be predicted by the way kids engage with narratives about��who they are, Immordino-Yang says. “It’s a really powerful��statement about the power young people hold through their��own thoughts and feelings to grow themselves over time.”��

Another project, being worked on with University of��Michigan Professor Jamaal Matthews, is trying to understand how a young person’s processes of creating meaning��become the substrate for their biological growth. Matthews��received a three-year NSF midcareer faculty fellowship��with Immordino-Yang to study social affective neuroscience and collaborate with CANDLE researchers to��forge a new conversation and research approach that brings��together racial equity studies with developmental brain��studies in adolescents.

“We’re trying to understand the sort of psycho-biological, psycho-social, cultural, biological nature of adolescence,” Immordino-Yang says. “It’s really about changing��the way we think of teaching as a profession in secondary��school: What is the role of the teacher in kids’ lives? What��do teachers need to know how to do, [and] what capacities��do they need to have to be effective in these spaces?”��

The work is part of a scholarly body that could upend��traditional ideas about teaching and learning. One of��CANDLE’s current challenges is that society has deeply��held assumptions about what learning is about, what school��is for and what it means to think, Immordino-Yang says.��And those assumptions are problematic in many ways. “The��thinking and focused attention and quote-unquote academic learning is directly tied to the way that students are feeling,��and that’s directly tied to the ways that their social world��is structured,” she says.

“We are always deeply social and��emotional in everything we think��about. We think because we want��to; we think because it matters.��Those are emotional drives.” —Mary Helen Immordino-Yang, Fahmy and Donna��Attallah Chair in Humanistic Psychology at ������̳

Research in action

Immordino-Yang’s research can be seen in action at local��schools she has partnered with. Da Vinci RISE High in��South L.A. is an independent studies high school that serves��predominantly foster and housing-unstable youth, says Erin��Whalen, the school’s executive��director. “We were built and��designed for the youth in those��populations: If we create a school��model with the most at-risk students in mind, that will serve all��students really well,” he says.��

Whalen says Immordino Yang’s work has been incredible��because as a school serving at-risk��students, many metrics and measures are rooted in the manifestations of trauma, but at RISE,��they start at the most basic of a��person’s needs: They have mental��health services, family counseling and behavior interventionists��all in-house at the school. The��school doesn’t suspend or expel��students. Whalen says the school��uses Immordino-Yang’s work��as a basis to place social-emotional learning at the core of the��school experience. “Mary Helen��has been an incredible thought��partner,” Whalen says. “She’s one��of our first folks in the mental��health-psychology realm to validate the work we’re doing.”��

He points out that skills like��self-regulation and agency aren’t��separate from academic skills:��“Social agency and self-management exist in the history classroom, on the playground and in��math class.” Those skills are also��what employers are looking for—while rote facts can be��Googled, social-emotional skills require students to know��themselves in a deeper way.

At New Village Girls Academy in Los Angeles, principal��Jennifer Quinones started working with Immordino-Yang��two years ago, to see how to best support teachers. The��school focuses on students who are not successful in traditional settings. They might be young mothers, students who��have been bullied or those with other high needs. “You can��imagine the amount of social-emotional learning trauma��they bring to school with them,” says Quinones. “One thing��that has been ignored is that the trauma is also carried by��the adults working with them.”��

Immordino-Yang is leading a team of researchers to��figure out how to help teachers manage their stress—to “put��on their own oxygen masks first,” Quinones says. She worked��at another school where she noticed a correlation between��teachers who were angry and frustrated and the likelihood��that their students would violate probation terms and end��up back in juvenile hall. By being proactive about wellness��and stress reduction, she says, her school has retained more��teachers, and they are doing better than before. “If we’re��not making sure the adults molding them are OK, then we��are failing completely,” she says. “If we wanted to promote��the practice of wellness, we also needed to be the example��for our girls.”��

The study has concluded, and researchers from��CANDLE are putting together the data with the hope of��doing a follow-up in the future. “Mary Helen is very special��in what she can do,” Quinones says. “She brought edu-babble��to a level that everyone can understand. She talks about how��the brain functions, what stress causes, and the damaging��effects it can have on the development of a child.”��

“She brought a real wealth of knowledge of the actual��scientific evidence, thinking about how to incorporate��wellness into math, science and history,” Quinones adds.��Immordino-Yang is also helping the school think about how��to teach courses that are culturally responsive and how to��help teachers have mechanisms to help students develop��self-awareness to be able to better communicate.

“Mary Helen Immordino-Yang��brought edu-babble to a level��that everyone can understand.��She talks about how the brain��functions, what stress causes and��the damaging effects it can have��on the development of a child.” —Jennifer Quinones, principal at New Village Girls Academy

It’s not always easy work. Immordino-Yang says developing a new knowledge of education and neurodevelopment is��messy, generative and not always efficient. She is publishing��papers in neuroscience journals, but also journals of education, philosophy and political science.��

Still, she hopes CANDLE’s work will contribute to��a more inclusive educational world, one that focuses on��process instead of outcome in development and learning.��The rise of social-emotional learning curricula around the��country has been heralded as a tool to promote equity in��learning. She thinks that in the future, teachers and students��will start to appreciate the deeply cultural nature of human��biology and understand more diverse perspectives around��science learning and teaching—based on development.��“We’re really inventing a new transdisciplinary approach��to developmental science,” she says, “with the goal of creating a richer, more modernized understanding of human��development.”