The Study of Social and Emotional Skills is an international effort led by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development to understand the importance of these skills in student development and learning. The Houston Independent School District served as the only U.S. site for this study, with local data collection and analysis managed by the Kinder Institute's Houston Education Research Consortium. Over 6,400 10-year-old and 15-year-old students from 119 HISD schools participated in the study.
An initial brief released by HERC provided a snapshot of student SE skills and examined differences in these skills across race/ethnicity and economic disadvantage status. Briefs 2, 3a and 3b examine how SE skills are related to academic outcomes, absenteeism and exclusionary discipline. Brief 4 looks at family, school and community learning contexts to provide information about the conditions and practices that foster or hinder the development of these critical skills. Brief 5 shares the commonalities and differences between students’ self-ratings and teachers’ ratings of students’ SE skills.