Social-Emotional Development

[Page 724]Social-emotional development (SED) refers to the development of emotional, interpersonal, and resiliency skills essential to students’ success and thriving in school and out of school. These skills are known by many names, most commonly psychological assets, resilience, emotional intelligence, noncognitive abilities, 21st-century skills, life success skills, or soft skills. It is an emerging field, and with it comes fragmented terminology and multiple ideas about scope and approach. This entry discusses reasons for the use of social-emotional development as the unifying terminology instead of social-emotional learning, the term used in many education circles. Social-emotional learning implies a narrow or curriculum-like focus, while SED takes into account that social-emotional skill acquisition is a part of youth development in and out of education. In addition to the ...