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 inthe 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.
