Social competence, emotional/behavioral problems and school failure: a comparison study among adolescents

• Published in: Revista de Psicologia da IMED Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 3 - 20
• Main Authors: Fernanda Aparecida Szareski Pezzi, Fénita Mahendra, Dienifer Mattos Ghedin, Angela Helena Marin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Faculdade Meridional (IMED) 01.08.2018
• ISSN: 2175-5027; 2175-5027
• DOI: 10.18256/2175-5027.2018.v10i1.2249

School failure still presents itself as a relevant problem in Brazil, making it important to investigate factors associated with it. This study aimed to evaluate social competence and emotional and behavioral problems among adolescents with and without history of school failure. It is a quantitative research, with a correlational and comparative design of cross section. The participants were 76 adolescents from two public schools of São Leopoldo/RS. 35 of them presented with failure history and 41 without this history. The instrument used was the Youth Self-Report (YSR) for ages 11-18, and also the record of the number of school failures, obtained from the secretaries of each school accessed. The results showed that both groups had similar levels of social competence and emotional and behavioral problems demonstrating that in this sample the school performance was not associated with the analyzed variables. These data suggest that school failure is constituted as a multidimensional phenomenon and the isolated assessment of individual variables may not be enough to understand it.