Educators understand that student success goes beyond test scores. When students feel valued, understood, and able to manage emotions and relationships, they thrive in both school and life. This is the heart of Social Emotional Learning (SEL), an educational framework that builds essential skills for academic achievement and personal growth.

What is Social Emotional Learning (SEL)?

The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) defines SEL through five core competencies:

• Self-awareness: Recognizing emotions, values, strengths and limitations
• Self-management: Managing emotions and behaviors to achieve goals
• Social awareness: Showing empathy and understanding for others
• Relationship skills: Establishing and maintaining healthy relationships
• Responsible decision-making: Making constructive, ethical choices

The first, self-awareness, is the foundation. When students reflect on their emotions, identity and experiences, they develop a stronger sense of self — a skill that supports all other SEL competencies.

When students reflect on their emotions, identity and experiences, they develop a stronger sense of self — a skill that supports all other SEL competencies.

Building Self-Awareness Through Stories

Stories, whether from real lives or fictional characters, are powerful tools for SEL. They allow students to explore complex human experiences, build empathy, and reflect on their own identities and choices. Two EBSCO research databases, Biography Reference Ultimate and Literary Reference Ultimate, offer rich opportunities for educators and librarians to integrate SEL into student learning.

Biography Reference Ultimate

Biography Reference Ultimate provides access to thousands of full-text biographies and scholarly resources that help students examine how historical and contemporary figures have faced adversity, discovered their identities, overcome challenges and left lasting legacies. For example, students might use Biography Reference Ultimate to learn the story of Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani education activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner. The database offers a curated topic page of biographies, e-books, magazine articles, and the full text of Malala's 2013 United Nations speech. These resources highlight her resilience, advocacy for girls' education, and candid reflections on fear, hope and purpose. Through guided research, students learn how self-awareness and vulnerability can foster personal growth and positive change. In this way, Biography Reference Ultimate becomes more than a research tool — it connects authentic human experiences with students' own journeys of self-discovery.

Literary Reference Ultimate

Literary Reference Ultimate supports SEL through the study of literature, offering plot summaries, critical analyses and contextual resources that help students explore the emotional depth of fictional characters. For instance, students analyzing The Giver by Lois Lowry can use the database to explore Jonas's struggle with conformity, memory and truth. Critical perspectives show how his growing self-awareness shapes his identity, encouraging students to reflect on their own choices, values and independence.

By engaging with literature through this lens, students strengthen both their literary understanding and their ability to connect stories with personal experience.

An SEL Toolkit: The Ultimate Databases for Schools

While Biography Reference Ultimate and Literary Reference Ultimate are particularly well-suited for SEL, they are part of a broader collection of six EBSCO Ultimate Databases for Schools:

• Biography Reference Ultimate
• History Reference Ultimate
• Literary Reference Ultimate
• Points of View Reference Ultimate
• Science Reference Ultimate
• Consumer Health Ultimate

Together, these resources help middle and high school students explore diverse perspectives, build academic confidence, and strengthen social emotional skills such as empathy, reflection and responsible decision-making.

Conclusion

By integrating EBSCO's Ultimate Databases into classroom activities and research projects, librarians and educators can support the whole student — promoting not only academic achievement, but also the self-awareness that is essential for lifelong success.