Social Competence in the School Setting: Prospective Cross-Domain Associations among Inner-City Teens

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In this 6-month prospective study of 138 ninth-grade inner-city students, associations among different aspects of school-based social competence were examined.In addition, links between initial emotional adjustment and subsequent social competence at school were explored.Aspects of social competence examined included academic achievement, peer reputation, and teacher-rated classroom behaviors.Emotional adjustment was measured based on self-reported internalizing and externalizing symptoms.Consonant with views positing continuity and coherence of development, high temporal consistency was found within each social competence domain.In addition, superior adjustment in one domain was sometimes associated with subsequent improvements in other spheres as well.Exceptions found to this pattern were that (a) both as an antecedent and as a consequent variable, peer-rated sociability was negatively linked with other indices of schoolbased functioning, and (b) among girls, high anxiety was related to improved performance at school over the year.Ecological influences in adolescent adjustment are discussed, and implications of the findings for future research are explored.Structuralist-organizational views of child development hold that the successful negotiation of major developmental tasks is critical in determining subsequent levels of competence (Cicchetti & Schneider-Rosen, 1986;Masten & Braswell, 1990;Sroufe & Rutter, 1984).Achieving success at particular stage-salient tasks can give children a foundation of success or failure from which they approach future developmental challenges.In addition, success at meeting particular age-appropriate societal expectations-or high social competencegenerally signals good underlying coping skills (Garmezy & Masten, 1986;Luthar & Zigler, 1991).Superior coping strategies, in turn, are likely to facilitate competence in other domains as well. Continuity of Competence: Empirical EvidenceSeveral longitudinal studies provide support for such organizational theories of development.A 7-year follow-up study by Morison and Masten (1991) indicated that peer ratings of social competence during elementary school were significantly related to various