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Objectives. Although research has established a strong link between socioeconomic status (SES) and health in Western settings, comparable work in China lags behind. Similarly, studies showing a unique relationship for subjective social status (SSS) and health above and beyond SES have yet to be tested in China. The present study addresses these gaps. Methods. Regression analyses investigated the relationship between SES, SSS, and mental and physical health net of several covariates for 2,282 caregivers in Shanghai, China. Indirect relationships for SES through SSS were also tested. Results. Results indicate that SES is linked to mental and physical health outcomes, but in complicated ways. SSS, on the other hand, is consistently and robustly linked to health outcomes above and beyond income, education, occupational prestige, and Hukou status. Further significant indirect effects were found through SSS for income, education, and Hukou status. Conclusion. In China's context of rapid economic growth, relationships to SES and health appear complicated. However, subjective perceptions of status are consistently linked to health outcomes.

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.

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This paper critically reviews the opportunities and challenges in designing and conducting actionable research on the learning and development of children in conflict- and crisis-affected countries. We approached our review through two perspectives championed by Edward Zigler: (a) child development and social policy and (b) developmental psychopathology in context. The aim of the work was to answer the following questions: What works to enhance children's learning and development in such contexts? By what mechanisms? For whom? Under what conditions? How do experiences and conditions of crisis affect the basic processes of children's typical development? The review is based on a research–practice partnership started in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2010 and expanded to research in Niger and Lebanon in 2016. The focus of the research is on the impact of Healing Classrooms (a set of classroom practices) and Healing Classrooms Plus (an additional set of targeted social and emotional learning activities), developed by the International Rescue Committee, on children's academic outcomes and social and emotional learning. We sought to extract lessons from this decade of research for building a global developmental science for action. Special attention is paid to the importance of research–practice partnerships, conceptual frameworks, measurement and methodology. We conclude by highlighting several essential features of a global developmental science for action.

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Social and emotional learning (SEL) programs are increasingly embraced by the global humanitarian sector as a potential strategy for supporting refugee children's psychosocial adaptation and learning. However, little evidence is available on the effectiveness of such SEL programs in humanitarian settings. Even less is known about whether such SEL programs can be equally effective, more beneficial, or even harmful, for children who were exposed to higher levels of conflict, in the context of war and/or postmigration settings. This study evaluates the effectiveness of a universal, multicomponent, skill-targeted SEL curriculum embedded in nonformal remedial education programming, the Five-Component SEL (5CSEL), for improving 20 proximal and distal outcomes. The large-scale cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted in 57 community sites (170 classrooms) in Lebanon with 4,289 Syrian refugee children (Mage = 9.16, SD = 2.34; 50% female). It examined both the impact of 5CSEL and the impact variation by children's level of exposure to war violence, family conflict, and school victimization. The findings do not provide conclusive evidence of the effectiveness of 5CSEL. However, we find promising signs of impacts in a number of the outcomes (effect sizes = 0.06–0.18 SD), suggesting the malleability of refugee children's SEL skills across multiple domains when given sufficient, targeted, and comprehensive support. Finally, we find little evidence of variation in impact by the level of exposure to conflict experiences, supporting the arguments for the benefits of universal SEL programming. These results provide promising directions for practitioner communities to invest in further development and revision of the SEL program contents and strategies.