Self-concept and social skills of school beginners : summary and discussion

Abstract

The study is part of a larger project called "Way of life of the family, parental consciousness of parenthood, and children's social development", which started in 1976 at the Department of Psychology of Jyvaskyla University. The present summary and discussion is based on five publications. The purpose of the research was 1) to study the stability and change of social skills and self-concept 2) to explore the relationship of general cognitive and linquistic abilities and self-concept, especially social self-concept, to social skills and 3) to study the socialization of social skills and self-concept during the transition from preschool settings to school. The socioecological approach to socialization was used as a general theoretical frame of reference. The subjects consisted of 213 children and their parents from towns and the countryside. The analysis of children's social skills was based on parents', kindergarten teachers', and first grade teachers' evaluations as well as on observations carried out in preschool and at school. Three self-concept measures were used. The first data were collected 4-5 months before and the last one 7-8 months after beginning school. The results indicated moderate continuity of social behaviour from preschool to school. At school beginning transitional problems of social skills were revealed. The social behaviour patterns started to stabilize during the first term at school in children belonging to different types of social skills. About 10 % of the boys had continuing problems with peers and adults. The children belonging to different types of social skills differed significantly in central aspects of their social self-concept as well as socialization background.