Non-Cognitive Skills and Economic Mobility

Exploring the short- and long-term impacts of social emotional instruction on middle school students in the Mississippi Delta

In August 2024, the Center for Community Research and Evaluation (CCRE), directed by University of Memphis sociology professor Dr. Wesley James, received a one-year, $70,288 subaward from Urban Institute via CCRE’s longstanding regional partner, Delta Health Alliance (DHA). The award, “Evaluating Effects of Non-Cognitive Competency Trajectories on Economic Mobility Using Data from Promise Neighborhoods”, will use extensive data sources to rigorously explore the short- and long-term impacts of social emotional instruction delivered to middle school students attending schools in the Mississippi Delta. The primary goal of the research is to explore non-cognitive pathways and their effects on economic mobility among 7th through 9th grade school students enrolled in the Botvin LifeSkills program, a research-validated, cognitive-behavioral intervention that has been administered for nearly a decade in DHA’s Promise Neighborhoods. The research, sponsored by Urban Institute’s Student Upward Mobility Initiative, is designed to address how change in students’ social-emotional growth throughout early adolescence fosters student growth and positive postsecondary outcomes. The project will leverage DHA data, as well as outcomes from Mississippi’s state longitudinal data system through a partnership with NSPARC at Mississippi State University.

DHA, Mississippi’s largest community-based, non-profit organization, operates over 30 programs across the lifespan that collectively aim to reduce health, education, and socioeconomic disparities in a historically disadvantaged region. A key area of DHA programming involves the implementation of Promise Neighborhoods - $30 million, 5-year cradle-to-career pipeline grants awarded by the U.S. Department of Education to support schools in a defined geographic footprint with comprehensive services. DHA operated the Indianola Promise Community from 2012 to 2023, and then building upon that success, launched the Deer Creek Promise Community in 2017. In 2022 DHA became the only organization in the nation to ever receive a third Promise Neighborhood, currently implemented in Leflore County, MS. CCRE researchers prepared a comprehensive needs assessment to inform DHA in the planning of Leflore Promise Community wraparound services reaching the families of over 4,000 children in Greenwood, Itta Bena, and surrounding communities. Collectively, DHAs Promise Communities are among the most successful in the nation with significant transformative outcomes including significant impacts on kindergarten readiness, third grade reading proficiency, graduation rates, juvenile delinquency, and childhood poverty.

CCRE researchers evaluate all DHA programs which are built on a results-based accountability model to ensure programming decisions are data-driven and lead to measurable impact. With expertise in program evaluation strategy, data management, visualization and dashboarding, statistical research, multimodal survey design/implementation, and qualitative interviewing, CCRE also serves as DHA’s “scientific help desk” to conduct rapid research analysis of program outcomes, including supporting grant proposals to state and federal agencies.  On the research front, CCRE researchers have prepared numerous reports and white papers, delivered conference presentations to diverse audiences and published eight academic papers on DHA projects. A paper currently under review focuses on the impact of a Promise Neighborhood-based literacy intervention delivered to struggling third grade readers. It is anticipated that the Urban Institute award will be instrumental in producing research evidence for understanding the link between non-cognitive instruction and long-term change for students and communities.

In addition to the Promise Neighborhoods, CCRE’s research underpins a variety of DHA projects that have received national acclaim, including a $9 million Mississippi-wide COVID-19 vaccination initiative which contributed to a substantial increase in African-American vaccination rates, an endocrinology telehealth intervention leading to large decreases in the severity of diabetes, and a $2.2 million NIH award to develop and implement structural interventions to improve maternal health.

For more information, contact Dr. James at wljames1@memphis.edu.