LIfTS Presents at: 

Quarterly Meeting of English Learners Research Alliance 

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Sal Terrasi, LIfTS Director, along with Kellie Jones, Director of Bilingual Education for the Brockton Public Schools, were the featured speakers at the October 26, 2020 Quarterly Meeting of the English Learners Research Alliance. 

The Alliance focuses on issues relevant to English learners, and is composed of department of education representatives from the Northeast United States and various territories.  In attendance were administrators from the Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut departments of education, as well as the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.  

Terrasi and Jones spoke about their current work [funded by a NoVo Foundation grant] which examines social emotional learning in culturally and linguistically diverse groups. Using focus groups with bilingual educators and parents, they examined how SEL competencies differed across cultural groups. Preliminary findings have supported important differences in the way various groups value and express specific SEL competencies measured by an instrument commonly used to measure SEL in school-aged children---- especially in the areas of Relationship Skills and Self-Awareness.