A Flexible, Integrated, and Scalable Approach to Early Social-Emotional Development: Experimental Evidence from Brazil

Early social-emotional development predicts school performance and longer-term outcomes. Yet, pre-school teachers in low- and middle-income countries struggle to build children’s social-emotional skills because they lack training, materials, and time during the school day. In 2026, we plan to conduct a randomized evaluation of a set of ready-made games and activities (“SEL Kernels”) developed by Stephanie Jones at Harvard that teachers can implement at various points during the day (e.g., before/after recess) to practice cognitive, emotional, and interpersonal skills, as well as character and mindset. We will randomly assign 200 pre-school centers in São Paulo to receive the intervention for one year during or after the study. The intervention includes: two days of training (one at the start and a “refresher” later), 30+ cards with the games/activities, support via WhatsApp, and online videos modeling implementation. Teachers will be expected to use the activities a minimum of three times per week. We have already secured funding from J-PAL/Bracell Foundation to survey teachers about their beliefs and practices at baseline and to measure children’s social-emotional skills and academic skills at baseline and endline. We are requesting funds from LAI to also observe classrooms (to capture student-teacher interactions and behavioral problems) at endline.