The role of social competence in the relationship between classroom behaviors and school engagement

The fields of education and psychology have long been concerned with the relationship between problematic classroom behaviors and students' academic performance. School engagement has increasingly been shown to be a useful outcome variable due to its responsiveness to contextual variations such as social interactions. Social competence has become widely recognized as fundamental to a child's learning process.;This study sought to examine the role of social competence, as measured by social skills, in the relationship between two types of classroom behaviors (i.e., externalizing and internalizing behaviors) and school engagement as well as its subtypes: behavioral, affective and cognitive engagement. It was hypothesized that social skills would have a moderating effect in the relationship between the two types of classroom behaviors and each subtype of school engagement. Levels of school engagement were predicted to negatively correlate with grade level.;The participants were 94 third graders and 69 fifth graders from seven Boston urban public schools. Students rated their social skills using the Social Skills Rating System (Gresham and Elliot, 1990) as well as their school engagement using a measure developed by Fredricks and colleagues (2003). Teachers rated each child's classroom behaviors with the teacher scale of the Social Skills Rating System. Data were examined using stepwise regression analyses.;Findings indicated that externalizing behaviors negatively predicted school engagement subtypes. Internalizing behaviors positively predicted only affective engagement. Social skills were found to have a mediating effect in the relationship between externalizing behaviors and school engagement subtypes. Social skills had no effect in the relationship between internalizing behaviors and school engagement. Grade level only predicted cognitive engagement which was higher for fifth graders.;Results are discussed in terms of their implications for addressing classroom behavior problems and increasing school engagement through teaching social skills. Implications for policy regarding social-emotional learning and directions for future research on these constructs are also discussed.