Linking Social-Emotional Competence to Behavioral and Academic Adjustment among Chinese Kindergarten Children: A Multilevel Approach

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14

Foreign Countries; Kindergarten; Young Children; Social Emotional Learning; Interpersonal Competence; Student Evaluation; Teacher Attitudes; Parent Attitudes; Child Behavior; School Readiness; Vocabulary Skills; Word Recognition; Behavior Problems; Questionnaires; Screening Tests; Student Adjustment

10.1080/10409289.2021.1979836

1040-9289
1556-6935

Research Findings: This cross-sectional study examined the class- and child-level associations of social-emotional competence with behavioral and academic adjustment among Chinese kindergarten children and tested teacher collectivistic socialization goals as a moderator. Participants were 523 kindergarten children and their mothers and class teachers from Hong Kong, China. The mean age of children was 4.37 years (SD = 0.60), and 53% of them were boys. Using paper-and-pencil questionnaires, class teachers rated children's social-emotional competence and their own socialization goals, and mothers rated children's externalizing behaviors and school readiness and provided demographic information. Also, in structured interviews, children completed a Chinese word reading test. Multilevel models indicated that, controlling for child gender and age, mother age and education, and teacher experience of teaching, the class average of child social-emotional competence -- which indicated the overall social-emotional climate of the classroom -- was linked negatively to child externalizing behaviors and positively to child school readiness and Chinese word reading ability. Moreover, children who scored higher on social-emotional competence -- compared to their own class average (i.e., their everyday companions) -- scored lower on externalizing behaviors and higher on school readiness. There was no evidence of the moderating role of teacher socialization goals, however. Practice or Policy: Findings pointed to the utility of using class-wide initiatives to promote the overall classroom climate and using child-specific activities to promote individual social-emotional development.

As Provided

2022

EJ1354419