Supporting Syrian Refugee Children’s Academic and Social-Emotional Learning in National Education Systems: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial of Nonformal Remedial Support and Mindfulness Programs in Lebanon

American Educational Research Journal, Ahead of Print.
Experimental evidence on strategies to support refugee children’s integration into host-country public schools is needed. We employ a three-arm, site-randomized controlled trial to test the impact of short-term access to two versions of nonformal remedial programming infused with social-emotional learning (SEL) among Syrian refugee children in Lebanese public schools. Remedial programming with classroom climate-targeted SEL practices improved children’s perceptions of public schools (effect sizes [ES] = 0.48–0.66) only. The remedial program with both classroom climate-targeted SEL and skill-targeted activities had positive impacts on children’s perceptions of public schools (ES = 0.43–0.50) and on certain basic academic skills (ES = 0.08–0.14), and marginally significant positive and negative impacts on some SEL outcomes (ES = 0.16–0.31). We found no impacts of either version on children’s global literacy or numeracy competence.
Source: American Educational Reasearch Journal