This book contains a selection of papers presented at the Advanced Research Workshop on ‘The Socio-economic causes and consequences of desertification in Central Asia’ held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in June 2006. The meeting provided a forum for twenty-six scientists from Central Asia and NATO countries to discuss the human dimensions of the desertifi- tion process. Papers presented to the meeting examined recent scientific evidence on the impact of desertification on livestock production, public health, and biodiversity, and contributed to the formulation of coh- ent national and regional policies for the management of watersheds, rangelands, and irrigated agriculture. The meeting was co-directed by Roy Behnke of the Macaulay Institute, UK, and by Lapas Alibekov of the Samarkand State University, Uzbekistan. Both the workshop and this subsequent publication have been financed by the NATO Scientific Affairs Division and we gratefully acknowledge this support. The Bishkek meeting was ably hosted by the Kyrgyz Sheep Breeders Association under the dir- tion of Akylbek Rakaev who contributed substantially to the successful running of the workshop. Deliberations at the workshop emphasized that policy failures at national level had promoted desertification within the region.

This report presents a synthesis of OECD’s empirical work that aims at identifying the types of social and emotional skills that drive children’s future outcomes.

This open access volume critically reviews a diverse body of scholarship and practice that informs the conceptualization, curriculum, teaching and measurement of life skills in education settings around the world. It discusses life skills as they are implemented in schools and non-formal education, providing both qualitative and quantitative evidence of when, with whom, and how life skills do or do not impact young women’s and men’s lives in various contexts. Specifically, it examines the nature and importance of life skills, and how they are taught. It looks at the synergies and differences between life skills educational programmes and the way in which they promote social and emotional learning, vocational/employment education, and health and sexuality education. Finally, it explores how life skills may be better incorporated into education and how such education can address structures and relations of power to help youth achieve desired future outcomes, and goals set out in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Life skills education has gained considerable attention by education policymakers, researchers and educators as being the sine qua non for later achievements in life. It is nearly ubiquitous in global and national education policies, including the SDGs, because life skills are regarded as essential for a diverse set of purposes: reducing poverty, achieving gender equality, promoting economic growth, addressing climate change, fostering peace and global citizenship, and creating sustainable and healthy communities. Yet, to achieve these broad goals, questions persist as to which life skills are important, who needs to learn them, how they can be taught, and how they are best measured. This book addresses these questions.

The burgeoning multidisciplinary field of social and emotional learning (SEL) now has a comprehensive and definitive handbook covering all aspects of research, practice, and policy. The prominent editors and contributors describe state-of-the-art intervention and prevention programs designed to build students' skills for managing emotions, showing concern for others, making responsible decisions, and forming positive relationships. Conceptual and scientific underpinnings of SEL are explored and its relationship to children's and adolescents' academic success and mental health examined. Issues in implementing and assessing SEL programs in diverse educational settings are analyzed in depth, including the roles of school- and district-level leadership, teacher training, and school-family partnerships.

Proceedings of the UISPP 2014 session 'Analysis of the economic foundations supporting the social supremacy of the Beaker groups'. Papers presented at this session suggesting that Beaker groups may have controlled certain products and technologies.

In this book, emotional teaching-learning is explored as it is cultivated based on teachers’ and learners’ attraction to reasonableness and emotions and can give rise to a plausible form of decoloniality or decolonisation in and through education. It is argued that when the latter manifests, the democratic transformation of education might ensue. Put differently, decoloniality and/or decolonisation of education is a substantive way to look at the democratisation and, by implication, transformation of education and schooling. Readers are invited to engage with the meanings espoused throughout this book in the quest to cultivate a genuinely decolonial form of education in universities and schools, where values education should be enacted reasonably and emotively in such educational institutions. Teachers and learners cannot remain silent when oppressive and hegemonic forces of modernity continue to guide educational practices in institutions. Contributors are: Ahoud Alasfour, N’Dri Thérèse Assié-Lumumba, Emiliano Bosio, José Brás, Juan Carlos Rodriguez Camacho, Michael Cottrell, Lucimar Dantas, Amanda Fiore, Carla Galego, Maria Neves Gonçalves, Logan Govender, Beatriz Koppe, Sibonokuhle Ndlovu, Phefumula Nyoni, Adaobiagu Nnemdi Obiagu, Peter Oyewole, Theresa A. Papp, Martyn Reynolds, Kabini Sanga, V. Sucharita, Yusef Waghid and Emnet Tadesse Woldegiorgis.