# **2.1 Socio-emotional skills and education**

In general, education is found to correlate positively with socio-emotional skills, though results may not be monotonic (Heckman et al., 2006). First, there is evidence on school sorting under socio-emotional skills whereby individuals with low endowments in socio-emotional skills are less likely to enter school and more likely to exit (Conti et al., 2010; Acosta et al. 2020; Papageorge et al. 2019). Second, the potential of socio-emotional skills training to improve attendance, educational attainment, and academic achievement is well documented, with important implications for potential earnings (Heckman et al., 2006; Almlund et al., 2011; Durlak et al., 2011; Lippman et al., 2015; OECD, 2015; Taylor et al., 2017; DiPrete & Jennings, 2012). In a study of elementary school children in the United States, Diprete & Jennings (2012) find that girls have higher levels of soft skills, but there is no gender difference in academic returns to these skills. <mark>In Uganda, Chioda et al. (2021) show that</mark> graduates from <mark>a soft-skill intensive training w</mark> ere more likely to have graduated from secondary school and female graduates were also more likely to be enrolled in or to have completed tertiary education. However, the impact of socio-emotional skills on academic outcomes is by no means guaranteed and varies with the particular skill and academic indicator analyzed (Smithers et al., 2018; OECD, 2021). Conscientiousness, and related concepts such as self-discipline, persistence, grit, have been particularly predictive of academic performance (Almund et al., 2011; Duckworth et al., 2007; Duckworth & Segilman, 2005; OECD, 2021; <mark>Mammadov, 2021</mark> ), possibly due to their impact on study habits, effort, and prosocial behavior (Almund et al., 2011). Other mindset interventions have been found to create a belief in malleable intelligence, transform the attribution of setbacks, affirm values, or improve aspirations, and thereby motivate students, increase use of learning strategies, mitigate stereotype threat, encourage belongingness, and reduce absences and disruptive behavior (Yeager & Walton, 2011; Farrington et al., 2012). While self-esteem has had mixed results on academic performance, results may be positive in cases where it is tied to a positive attitude which enhances incentives (Mohanty, 2009), facilitates persistence and initiative (Baumeister et al., 2003), or reduces risky behavior (Heckman et al., 2006; Guerra et al., 2014). However, few other socio-emotional skills have been analyzed in detail, with little to no examination of social skills (Farrington et al., 2012).

Though the causal influence of education on socio-emotional skills is promising, demonstrating a rigorous causal relationship is logistically difficult. However, a number of studies suggest the causal mechanisms at play. In the US, Jackson et al. (2020) found that high schools impact students' self-reported socioemotional development by enhancing social well-being and promoting hard work. Their results suggest that socio-emotional skills can be fostered by schools to improve longer-run outcomes. Schooling offers 7