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Reducing children’s school-related stress

20 February 2025

Interview Society Development Learning & Education Mental health Education policy Education systems Individual differences Learning environments Psychology

Can bringing neurobiology and educational research together help children with difficult lives outside the classroom?

Photo by cfg1978 from shutterstock.com

Interviewee:

Madeline Harms

Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Minnesota Duluth

Interview by:

Annie Brookman-Byrne

Deputy Editor BOLD

Partner

npj Science of Learning

npj Science of Learning is a fully open-access journal that aims to provide a forum for research at the intersection of neuroscience, psychology, and education theory. It publishes high-quality research on all aspects of learning and memory – from the genetic, cellular and molecular basis, to understanding how children and adults learn through experience and formal education practice. npj Science of Learning is pleased to host a Collection uniting the social and behavioural sciences to address achievement inequality.

When Madeline Harms encountered research showing how children from low-income families are disadvantaged, both cognitively and socially, she wanted to see more focus on solutions. Systematic research focusing on realistic ways to help these kids has not been a major focus in the field. And too little attention has been paid to children’s strengths and resilience despite difficult circumstances. Madeline tells Annie Brookman-Byrne about her efforts to connect neurobiology and educational research in the search for solutions to reduce inequality.

Annie Brookman-Byrne: What is neurobiology, and what inspired you to connect it with education research?

Madeline Harms: Neurobiology is the study of how the nervous system works. I became familiar with the neurobiology of stress through my research, but noticed a disconnect between research into the neurobiology of stress and research in education. Neurobiologists tended to focus on basic science without clear policy implications, while educational research focused on practical solutions, but often ignored or oversimplified neurobiological factors. This separation is common in academia, but my colleague Sherona Garrett-Ruffin and I thought we could integrate these two fields, which play crucial roles in reducing achievement inequality.

“It is clear that chronic stress can upset kids’ threat- and reward-detection systems.”

ABB: What did you discover as you were seeking to bring these fields together?

MH: We examined the work of many other researchers in these two fields. On the neurobiology side, it is clear that chronic stress can upset kids’ threat- and reward-detection systems. This, in turn, can affect classroom behavior and academic achievement.

On the education side, lots of studies focus on social-emotional learning, a term that refers to the collective processes involved in acquiring the skills needed to support healthy relationships and development. Many school districts have implemented interventions designed to help kids in these areas, which can be especially beneficial for those who have difficult lives outside the classroom. This type of intervention is designed to help reduce children’s perceived threat at school and motivate them to learn. But it involves several different components, and there is considerable variation in how these components are implemented in classrooms and schools. So while there is promising evidence that social-emotional learning can help reduce achievement inequality, we don’t yet know which aspects are most important or exactly how this works.

In addition, there is only limited research on how various teaching practices may interact with individual students’ ability to manage stress. We need much more interdisciplinary research on this topic, with input from psychologists, neuroscientists, and educational researchers.

ABB: What would improve outcomes for children in poverty?

MH: First of all, everyone needs to work together. We need government policies, such as the expanded Child Tax Credit in the US, that help parents financially. We also need state and local governments to provide schools with the resources they need to effectively implement programs like those designed to promote social-emotional learning. At the personal level, communication between parents and teachers is important, and setting up systems that encourage such dialogue will help economically disadvantaged kids succeed at school.

ABB: As a teacher yourself, has working on these topics changed how you teach?

MH: It was really interesting to dive into this research – especially the educational side, which I was not as familiar with. I teach college students, primarily undergraduates, and this project has made me more aware of the difficulties that these young people may have encountered in the past or be going through now – especially given the events of the past few years, including the COVID-19 pandemic and political upheaval.

“All students, whether they are at the undergraduate or graduate level or younger, need a safe and supportive learning environment.”

That awareness has motivated me to emphasize a safe classroom environment where everyone has a voice and can say what’s on their mind. That’s just as important in a statistics and research-methods class as it is in a class on racism and child development, both of which are courses I teach. All students, whether they are at the undergraduate or graduate level or younger, need a safe and supportive learning environment.