About

Maurice Elias is a Professor in the Department of Psychology at Rutgers University. He serves as the Director of the Rutgers Social-Emotional Learning Lab and is the Academic Director of The Collaborative, Rutgers’ Center for Community-Based Research and Service. His areas of expertise include clinical psychology, social-emotional learning, and community-based research. Dr. Elias is also the Co-Director of the Academy for SEL. He has held leadership roles such as Past President of the Society for Community Research and Action/Division of Community Psychology of the American Psychological Association (APA). Throughout his career, he has received numerous awards, including the SCRA Distinguished Contribution to Practice and Ethnic Minority Mentoring Awards, the APA’s National Psychological Consultants to Management Award, the Joseph E. Zins Memorial Senior Scholar Award for Social-Emotional Learning from CASEL, the John P.. McGovern Medal from the American School Health Association, and the Sanford McDonnell Award for Lifetime Achievement in Character Education. Dr. Elias is known for his work on students’ emotional intelligence, school success, and social-emotional and character development. He lectures nationally and internationally to educators and parents. His publications include books such as 'Promoting Social and Emotional Learning: Guidelines for Educators,' curricula for grades K-8, and other resources aimed at building emotional intelligence and resilience in children. He also writes a blog for the George Lucas Educational Foundation’s Edutopia Website.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Developmental psychology
• Psychology
• Social psychology
• Political Science
• Computer Science
• Pedagogy
• Social Science
• Clinical psychology
• Art
• Psychotherapist
• Public relations
• Visual arts
• Psychiatry

Selected publications

• Strengthening Schools and Students Against Historically Fueled Violence, Bias, and Unkindness, With a Focus on School Psychologists Among the Pupil Services Professions

  Urban Education · 2026-05-19

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Schools have not been sheltered from the history of extremist and race-based violence in the United States, regardless of efforts to prevent this history from being taught to students. Although the focus of this commentary has been on school psychologists, ensuring that positive school culture and climate norms are implemented without exception or exemption is a shared responsibility among school counselors, social workers, psychiatrists, nurses, and the rest of the school community. As students attend these kinds of school environments over multiple years, they have the opportunity to develop the skills and dispositions that would deter their expressions of violence.

  PublisherDOI

• Honoring Roger Weissberg’s legacy by centering relationships, collaboration, and the wellbeing of all children through SEL

  Social and Emotional Learning Research Practice and Policy · 2025-04-17

  articleOpen access1st author

  We describe how the field of social and emotional learning (SEL) can best honor Roger Weissberg’s legacy from the perspective of an early collaborator, Maurice J. Elias, and an early career scholar who felt his influence indirectly, Danielle R. Hatchimonji. Three themes permeated Roger’s early and most influential work and continue to shape his influence today: primacy of relationships, importance of collaboration, and shared commitment to the wellbeing of children. To uphold Roger’s influence and honor his legacy, the field of SEL must make these three themes central to research, practice, and policy of social and emotional learning.

  PublisherDOI

• Reinvigorating Classroom Climate

  2025-10-01 · 1 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  Reinvigorating Classroom Climate offers educators practical, reliable guidance for fostering more inspiring environments. Teachers and students alike need to show up to school feeling like they have a sense of purpose and will be welcomed, cared for, and nourished. Full of immediately actionable mini-solutions, this book gives frontline educators the everyday tools they need to establish the conditions that support positive mindsets, relationship-building, and social-emotional learning. These strategies cover it all: motivation and engagement, human dignity and purpose, moral and character development, bullying and absence, and much more. School teachers, teacher leaders, student support staff, and other K-12 professionals will come away with a wealth of action steps designed to fit into and enhance, rather than replace, their existing learning culture and climate.

  PublisherDOI

• Educational Approach H

  2025-10-01

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Commentary: What If the Doors of Every Schoolhouse Opened to Social-Emotional Learning Tomorrow: Reflections on How to Feasibly Scale Up High-Quality SEL

  2025-04-09

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Social-emotional learning (SEL) refers to a set of competencies that form the basis of human interaction. So, SEL in schools is no fad. But what would happen if every school actively wanted to bring in SEL tomorrow? Using the articles in the special issue on SEL as a springboard, this article looks at the neurological basis of SEL, SEL best practices, approaches to SEL instruction, assessment, and the complex issue of SEL and equity, and it reflects on the implications of these areas for scaling up sooner rather than later. Specific guidelines are provided, starting with this basic point: There are not enough experts available to guide this process, so schools must invest in staff learning about SEL, its rootedness in our biology, its basic role in accomplishing everything humans try to accomplish, and what we know about best practices and must provide cohort-based, ongoing professional development experiences that provide continuous support.

  PublisherDOI

• The Quest for Significance and Mattering in Education

  2025-01-14 · 2 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  The thesis of this chapter is that mattering matters and that education and schools play an important role in whether and how young people matter and grow up to pursue a path of mattering. That said, mattering has an ecological context that also is valenced and derives its valence from that context. Further, the development and exercise of mattering is linked to a constellation of virtues and skills that schools can influence. We discuss and clarify terms such as mattering, significance, meaning, positive purpose, and identity. This bridges into a discussion of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological-developmental-contextual model and how these constructs, while reflecting a universal need, are embedded in an ecological context. We highlight the role of educational systems in helping to determine young people’s purpose and mattering.

  PublisherDOI

• The use of a matched controls design and publicly available outcome data to evaluate a multiyear urban school-based SEL intervention

  Social and Emotional Learning Research Practice and Policy · 2025-04-25

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This study evaluated the effects of the Mastering Our Skills and Inspiring Character (MOSAIC) intervention on school-wide student outcomes for urban middle school students. Specifically, it investigated the extent to which schools implementing the MOSAIC intervention ( n = 6) show greater progress on key state-collected academic (e.g., English Language Arts, Mathematics) and behavioral (e.g., absenteeism, behavior referrals) outcome variables, compared to matched schools not hosting MOSAIC ( n = 30). Data were collected from publicly available school performance reports across multiple time points, including baseline, early implementation, and full implementation. These indicators were assessed annually, with academic assessments administered in the spring and behavioral metrics aggregated for the full academic year. This study utilizes the overlapping matched control group design, an innovative evaluation approach that involves fewer schools than most randomized control trials and relies on measurements routinely collected by schools, so as to provide feasible adoption of this approach by local schools and districts. Additionally, this study adds to the emerging literature on the impact of longitudinal SEL-related interventions on behavioral and academic trajectories in the middle grades with predominantly urban, minoritized youth, to inform educational policy. Our findings indicate mixed results across academic and behavioral indicators, such as significant improvement in Math scores but smaller effects for behavioral metrics, such as substance use. The results highlight the challenges and potential value of the matched control approach and the importance of monitoring multiple domains to fully understand intervention impacts.

  PublisherDOI

• Social–emotional competencies and character are at the foundation of education regardless of technology

  Frontiers in Education · 2025-10-20

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Innovative technologies like AI need to be brought into education in ways that will support best pedagogical practices. Examining the history of adoption of innovations shows that their impact often is hard to predict. Future use of AI must be accompanied by clarity about the educational purposes that AI is intended to enhance. Key to ensuring that AI’s impact is positive is recognizing that AI is operator dependent, and the social–emotional and character competencies of those implementing and using AI innovations – along with the prosocial value structure of their schools, particularly around academic integrity—will determine the impact of AI. This is illustrated with examples of cyberbullying and the presence of Chromebooks in classrooms. Policy and practice recommendations are provided, centered around the prioritization of collaborative and experiential pedagogy and systematic, intentional social–emotional and character development for all children in all schools.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Promoting the Social and Emotional Well-Being of Young Adolescents in Visual Arts Classrooms

  2025-09-17

  book-chapter

  While many arts educators have acknowledged the implicit occurrence of social-emotional learning (SEL) in art classes due to the nature of artistic activities and lessons—such as fostering creativity, self-expression, content creation, and interpersonal connections—there is a lack of empirical research on the concrete SEL strategies used within the visual arts classroom. To address this gap, the current study explores facilitators and effective practices for promoting SEL in two middle school visual arts classrooms (Grade 6, ages 11–12) located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Qualitative themes emerging from semi-structured interviews of both teachers and classroom observers suggest that factors inherent to the structure of the art classroom—including the collaborative atmosphere of the classroom and the creative autonomy given to students—facilitated the development of students’ social and emotional skills. Additionally, pedagogical approaches used by teachers, such as intentional reflection, self-regulation strategies, and intentional feedback, fostered the development of SEL skills in young adolescents. These findings can guide the future development of curricula and programs that integrate SEL into middle school visual arts education.

  PublisherDOI

• Testing the Social-Emotional and Character Development (SECD) approach with student mental health and academic outcomes

  Social and Emotional Learning Research Practice and Policy · 2025-03-20 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The present study examined the relationships between character virtues, social-emotional learning (SEL) skills, purpose, student mental health reports, and academic grades within the framework of a social-emotional learning and character development (SECD) approach. Path analyses were conducted using data collected from a SECD intervention in an urban mid-Atlantic school district. Participants consisted of 389 students from three participating middle schools. Analysis of cross-sectional data extracted from a single time point within the broader longitudinal study revealed significant relationships between character virtues and mental well-being, as well as between social-emotional learning (SEL) competencies and academic performance. A path analysis model demonstrated satisfactory fit, with character virtues and SEL skills as predictors, purpose as a "superordinate" virtue, and mental health and academic grades as outcome variables. These findings illuminate the potential pathways through which SECD components relate to academic grades and mental health, highlighting the importance of positive purpose within the SECD approach. Implications for further research and program development are discussed. Impact Statement Our study fills a critical research gap by examining the impact of integrating social-emotional learning and character development (SECD) pedagogy on two key student outcomes: academic grades and mental health. Using data from a district-wide SECD curriculum implemented in multiple schools, we investigate the relationship between social-emotional skills, character virtues, and positive purpose, offering valuable empirical evidence to support this pedagogical approach. This research not only sheds light on the SECD-student outcomes link but also provides recommendations for future evidence-based SECD programs and policies, informing further research and advancing the field.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Jeffrey S. Kress

  37 shared

• Joseph E. Zins

  21 shared

• Danielle R. Hatchimonji

  Nemours Children's Health System

  16 shared

• Gwyne W. White

  15 shared

• Dominic C. Moceri

  14 shared

• Roger P. Weissberg

  12 shared

• Brian S. Friedlander

  11 shared

• Steven E. Tobias

  11 shared

Education

• Ph.D. in Clinical-Community Psychology, Psychology

  University of Connecticut

  1980

Awards & honors

• SCRA Distinguished Contribution to Practice and Ethnic Minor…
• APA’s National Psychological Consultants to Management Award
• Joseph E. Zins Memorial Senior Scholar Award for Social-Emot…
• John P.. McGovern Medal from the American School Health Asso…
• Sanford McDonnell Award for Lifetime Achievement in Characte…