Social skills for the educational integration of pre-adolescent and adolescent immigrants

ABSTRACT

In this study, the variable ‘age’ was analysed in terms of its influence on the development of social skills among immigrant students enrolled in compulsory secondary education (12 to 18 years old) in the South of Spain. The social skills construct was defined with responses of N = 749 immigrant students using the Social Skill Scale for Young Immigrants (SSSYI). Six dimensions were evaluated: the ability to say ‘no’ and cut off interactions; self-expression in social situations; defending one’s own rights; ability to express anger or disagreement towards others; ability to make requests, and the ability to initiate positive interactions with the opposite sex. The analyses were carried out with the statistical software packages SPSS and STATA. The results showed that the probability of immigrant students to acquire social skills increased with age.

KEYWORDS:

• Social skills
• south of Spain
• logistic regressions
• secondary education
• immigrants
• instrument
• dimensions

Conflicts of Interest:

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Christian Fernández-Leyva

Christian Fernández-Leyva is a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Educational Sciences of the University of Granada. He is the author of numerous studies on social skills in immigrant adolescents and has participated in numerous conferences and symposia within the educational field.

Maria Tomé Fernández

Dr. Maria Tomé-Fernández is a professor at the Faculty of Education and Sports Sciences of Melilla, Spain, at the University of Granada. She is the author of multiple articles on cultural diversity in education. In addition, he has participated in and directed several educational projects.

José Manuel Ortiz-Marcos

Dr. José Manuel Ortiz Marcos is a professor at the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Granada. Her research interests focus on cyberbullying for intercultural reasons in adolescents, intercultural competence of teachers, and culturally sensitive pedagogy. Among its merits are international stays, in addition to participating as an organizing and scientific committee of various international congresses.