Research On Development And Affecting Factors Of Children's Social Competence With Peers

The social competence with peers is an important content of children socialization; it is also one of the most important competences of social communication. The social competence with peers is beneficial for children to get rid of selfishness, strengthen emotion, and promote prosocial action, competence of social communication and social cognition. The researches on the social competence with peers in western have more success; while in China have few deep, direct and systematic analyses. Furthermore it is insufficient for many parents and teachers to understand the dimensions and affecting factors of social competence with peers. So it is necessary to study the social competence with peers to increase the theories of peer communication and development of children's sociality, in order to serve the teaching practice. We attempt to discuss the following questions. 1. The dimensions of social competence with peers. 2. The development and major behavior in different ages. 3. The main affecting factors of competence.The study applies survey investigation with random sampling to 199 children from 3 to 6 years old. The survey is written by teacher. And the surveys of affecting factors are written by teacher and parent. The results indicated that 1. The social competence with peers consists of four dimensions, which are the initiative of association, prosocial action, verbal and nonverbal ability to associate, obstacles to association; 2. The social competence with peers develops gradually as they grow older, the quickest stage is the middle class, the senior class has a descendent trend slightly, comparing with the middle class, but the difference was not significant. Girl's social competence with peers is far better than boy's, there was a significant difference. 3. Class is better than age to be as index of development of the social competence with peers; 4. Parent, teacher and peer are important affecting factors to influence the social competence with peers, while peer is media factor between adults and the dimensions of social competence with peers.