Les déterminants des compétences sociales des élèves de cycle III

Abstract

Differences of achievement in school, traditionally studied by education researchers, can be analyzed in the light of skills and especially social skills. This scientific field is under construction but social skills still become a "must" for actors of the school system and for Educational Sciences. Through a multidisciplinary approach, this article proposes to study the determinants of social skills with social and educational indicators widely borrowed into the explanation of the differences of achievement models, with associated self-image, neuroticism and relationship with school measures. Indeed, these three dimensions are involved in the socialization and development of student skills. A reliable analytic tool of social skills (in a sample of 855 students from 7 to 12 years) enables to understanding for example girls’ success at school or the weight of the self-image in the development of social interpersonal and intra-individual skills. The results which explain determinants of social skills (self-explanatory success) allow opening the debate on the differences in academic achievement in school and redesign the classic pattern of the direct link between the characteristics and achievement, by intermediate effect of social skills.

Keywords

• learners' skills and behaviours
• family and education
• geography (teaching/education/relationship)
• self-image
• higher and university education
• pedagogy: methods and tools