Shocking (NOT) Research Result – SEL Can’t Mitigate The Affects Of Poverty On Academic Achievement

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I’ve previously shared how some, most notably David Brooks, have attempted to substitute Social Emotional Learning for adequate and sustained financial support for public education (see The manipulation of Social Emotional Learning and The Best Articles About The Study Showing Social Emotional Learning Isn’t Enough).

Those efforts have sort of cratered since, under the Trump administration, many don’t feel any need to show any concern for students, even if it’s fake.

But it’s still useful to be aware of new research that shows SEL can’t mitigate the effects of poverty.

Here’s an excerpt from Growth mindset and socioeconomic inequality in academic achievement across seventy-three PISA countries:

The results show that growth mindset mediates only a small portion of the effect of SES on student achievements, accounting for no more than 2.9% to 3.2% of the total effect, depending on the subject. These findings challenge the influential idea that growth mindset can ‘temper’ the effect of poverty on academic achievement.

This doesn’t mean, of course, that having a growth mindset can’t help students, teachers and everybody else!

Plenty of research shows that a growth mindset can be an asset (see The Best Resources On Helping Our Students Develop A “Growth Mindset”) and even this study shows it can have a small positive effect.

It’s just not a magic bullet, which few people are saying it is, anyway.