Institutional and Environmental Predictors of Social, Emotional, and Behavioral (SEB) Skills Among Minoritized Youth: A Global Perspective

Schools are a critical vehicle for promoting child well-being. Through their climate, organization, policies, and practices, school structures promote or inhibit the developmental trajectories of their students. While contemporary school research focuses heavily on cognitive skill development, the skills needed to make adequate progress in school and beyond, namely social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) skills, are rarely examined as primary outcomes in educational research. A plethora of research demonstrates the differential experiences of minoritized youth in their schools and communities, yet this research has not fully examined the extent to which these unique experiences affect SEB domains of development. This series of complementary studies elucidates the environmental and institutional contexts that create or diminish opportunities for the development of key SEB skills associated with positive developmental outcomes. These studies focus on developmental outcomes among minoritized youth from non-dominant racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups in national and global contexts. These studies leverage two unique datasets, a community sample of high school students in two U.S. cities and a large-scale international dataset that includes 10- and 15-year-old students in 9 countries. Multivariate regression, structural equation modeling (SEM), and hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) are used to examine the association of environmental and institutional contexts (i.e., community trauma exposure, discrimination, school climate, instructional practices) on the SEB development of minoritized youth in national and international contexts. The results of these studies can be used to inform school practices and policy development to better support the holistic development of youth, with a focus on minoritized youth.