In her review of the NISSEM Global Briefs, edited by Andy Smart, Margaret Sinclair, Aaron Benavot, Jean Bernard, Colette Chabbott, S. Garnett Russell, and James Williams, Solfrid Raknes points to the practical lessons the book’s contributing authors provide for incorporating SEL principles into classroom practice and education research.

In this commentary, authors Rebecca Winthrop and Helen Shwe Hadani reflect on the social and psychological toll the COVID-19 pandemic has taken on students, including those in high-income countries, as school closures deprive children of opportunities to play and form vital early relationships with classmates and teachers.

This special issue of JEiE contributes to the evidence for the need to incorporate PSS and SEL programming into EiE responses. It presents examples of the progress being made toward developing, validating, and using new, culturally relevant tools for measuring mental health and wellbeing among students experiencing crisis and conflict, and the teachers, parents, and caregivers who support them.

Ragnhild Dybdahl and James Williams, the lead editors for this special issue of JEiE, elaborate on the aims of the issue, its key messages, and the contributions made by the many authors of JEiE Volume 7, Number 2.

بعد ملاحظة ندرة الأدوات القوية لتقييم مهارات التعلم الاجتماعي العاطفي في ظروف الأزمات وقلة الموارد، فإن المؤلفان «نيخيت د. سا» و «أليسون كروبار» قاما بتطوير مقياس مجاني ومفتوح المصدر للمفهوم الذاتي، والسيطرة على التوتر النفسي، والمثابرة، والتعاطف، وحل الصراع. وأظهر المقياس الدقة والاتساق الداخلي القوي في دراسة التحقق على 620 طفل سوري يعيشون في العراق.

Noting the dearth of robust tools for assessing SEL skills in low-resource and crisis settings, authors Nikhit D’Sa and Allyson Krupar developed a cost-free, open-source measure of self-concept, stress management, perseverance, empathy, and conflict resolution. The measure showed reliability and strong internal consistency in a validation study among 620 Syrian children living in Iraq.