Socioemotional Skills Development in Highly Violent Contexts : Measurements and Impacts

Non-cognitive skills can determine socioeconomic success and the transmission of economicstatus across generations. Yet, evidence of cost-effective interventions that aim to develop these skills for at-riskyouth living in highly violent contexts is still scarce. This paper experimentally studies the social-emotionallearning and protection components of an After School Program (ASP) for teenagers in the most violentneighborhoods of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. By combining administrative records and data gathered on-sitevia computer from task-based games and AI-powered emotion detection algorithms, this paper measures the ASP'simpacts on behavior, academic performance, and non-cognitive skills. To measure the learning component, 21 public schoolswere randomly assigned to extracurricular activities (Clubs), a psychology-based curriculum that aims tostrengthen participants' character (Mindful), or a mindfulness and relaxation technique program (Mindful). Toestimate the protection component, 8 schools were selected as pure controls with a propensity score approach. Resultsshow that the net learning component improved behavior at school by 0.46 standard deviations and reduced a proxy forstress by 0.45 standard deviations relative to the Clubs only ASP. These results were driven by the Virtuecurriculum. Although the protection component negatively impacts social-emotional skills, it is, on average, moreeffective for students with worse behavior at baseline, indicating that the ASP curriculum and the characteristicsof the population served are key in designing policies aimed at improving students' behavior.