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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 9, No. 7
Publication Date: July 25, 2022
DOI:10.14738/assrj.97.12727. Pellerone, M., Razza, S. G., Micciche, S., & Piccolo, A. L. (2022). Relational Competence, School Adjustment and Emotional Skills: A
Cross-Sectional Study in a Group of Junior High School Students of the Sicilian Hinterland. Advances in Social Sciences Research
Journal, 9(7). 618-631.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Relational Competence, School Adjustment and Emotional Skills:
A Cross-Sectional Study in a Group of Junior High School Students
of the Sicilian Hinterland
Monica Pellerone
Faculty of Human and Social Sciences
“Kore” University of Enna, Italy
Stesy Giuseppa Razza
Faculty of Human and Social Sciences
“Kore” University of Enna, Italy
Sandra Miccichè
Faculty of Human and Social Sciences
“Kore” University of Enna, Italy
Alessandra Lo Piccolo
Faculty of Classical, Linguistic and Education Studies
“Kore” University of Enna, Italy
ABSTRACT
Literature has demonstrated the influence of emotional adjustment toward
manifestation of problem behaviors in adolescence above all during the Covid-19
pandemic. The research goal is to investigate the relational competence, the school
adjustment and emotional skills in a group of junior high school students of the
Sicilian hinterland. The research involved 213 students, among which 82 boys
(38.1%) and 131 girls (61.9%), aged between 11 and 14 (M=12.98; S.D.=1.05), of
which 6.7% have repeated the school year once. Participants completed following
instruments: the Test of Interpersonal Relationships (TRI) developed by Bracken
(1993) in order to value the perception of adolescents concerning the quality of
their relationships in social, familial and school contexts; the Multidimensional Test
of Self-Esteem (TMA) created by Bracken (2003), structured in six scales, which
coincide with the dimensions considered constitutive of self-esteem, namely:
Interpersonal Relationships, Emotional Competence, Control over the
Environment, School Success, Family Life and Body Image Perception. Data show
that a good emotional competence of adolescents has a positive influence on
learning and scholastic success, but above all on their relational ability towards
peer-group.
Keywords: Relational Competence; School Adjustment; Emotional Skills; Adolescence.
INTRODUCTION
Adolescence is that phase of life, between childhood and adulthood, during which any
individual develops needed requirements to become a competent and responsible adult.
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Pellerone, M., Razza, S. G., Micciche, S., & Piccolo, A. L. (2022). Relational Competence, School Adjustment and Emotional Skills: A Cross-Sectional
Study in a Group of Junior High School Students of the Sicilian Hinterland. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 9(7). 618-631.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.97.12727
It represents a phase of development that begins at 12 with puberty and ends at 22 years old,
with the entry into the adult world. This phase is characterized by physiological, morphological,
sexual, cognitive and social changes [1].
In literature it is regarded as a "new birth", a complete renewal of all aspects of personality.
While the child, during childhood, is interested in the external world and its phenomena, the
adolescent is oriented to develop one’s own inner vision, through an elaborate capacity for
introspection [2].
The life cycle is characterized by a series of evolutionary stages, which involve the carrying out
of developmental tasks, pre-adolescence and adolescence can be placed along a continuum:
starting from pre-adolescence, in fact, children begin to deal with a series of tasks concerning
the personal, relational and social environment; these tasks are aimed at the reorganization of
one's "identity". A fundamental role, in this phase, is assumed by all relationships with other
ones, first of all peers [3]; such relationships have been strongly influenced by onset of the
COVID 19 pandemic.
Indeed, starting from March 2020, the whole world was faced with a new scenario, a real
challenge on several fronts: health, economy, sociality and education [4].
To reduce Covid-19 infection, governments around the world have been forced to implement
containment measures, social distancing that have upset the lives of every human being. The
global change brought about by Covid-19 has had a negative impact on everyone's life; some
segments of the population, such as adolescents, however, have suffered more important
consequences than others. The lack of social life and the absence of sociability have caused
negative side effects for young people, who, in the course of their growth, are strongly
influenced by interactions with peers and extra-family activities.
Literature highlights how adolescents during the first lockdown, and then throughout the
course of the pandemic, developed symptoms of even severe psychophysical distress, such as
depression, anxiety and severe stress, which had never occurred before on such a large scale
[5].
The suffering of young people broke out due to some key factors that influenced it during the
quarantine: the distance from peers and the inability to socialize; the inability to carry out all
school and sports activities; the lack of a suitable family and housing context in which to spend
the period of confinement in a serene way; family economic difficulties; experiencing firsthand
the effects of the virus both on oneself and on closest people [6].
EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIO-RELATIONAL CONTEXT IN ADOLESCENCE
Adolescence is the period of life in which the subject is faced with the big questions about his
own identity and personality; emotions are a profound and important aspect of these questions,
useful for addressing the specific developmental tasks of adolescence.
Emotional competence, in particular, is defined as the knowledge of one's own and others'
emotions and the ability to manage and regulate one's emotions in order to face the different
situations that may arise [7-9].
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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 9, Issue 7, July-2022
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Literature shows that adolescents during the Covid-19 pandemic exhibited greater emotional
problems than the previous generation; in particular; research underlines a greater presence
of depression and rebellion among young people, who show more worries, anger and
nervousness becoming more impulsive and aggressive towards themselves and towards the
peer group [9].
Such behaviors are often a sign of insufficient development of emotional intelligence, which
also negatively affects social life, as it indicates inability to contain impulses and to understand
the feelings of others. A reduced emotional competence, in fact, can be traced back to three main
dysfunctional areas, namely: understanding, expression, and regulation of emotions [10].
The first area of expertise, understanding, concerns the knowledge of emotions, the causes that
cause them, the effects they have on inner moods and the strategies that can be adopted in their
regulation [11, 12]. The second, that is the expression, implies a social dimension: emotions are
externally manifested through non-verbal communication, and verbalized through the
channels of verbal communication [13]. The third, finally, concerns the individual's ability to
act on his own emotional processes, making himself able to regulate them above all for what is
attributable to the outward expression [11,14].
Being emotionally competent is an important architrave in the exchanges and social
interactions of daily life [15]. Emotions are therefore the object of socialization and are
influenced by the underlying ideas, expectations and values of social groups to which the
individual belongs. In this sense, we talk about emotional cultures precisely to emphasize how
emotion to all intents and purpose a cultural fact that characterizes certain social groups,
especially in the ways in which they express themselves, judge and represent specific emotions
[16,17].
Emotional skills and academic success
There is a close link between emotional intelligence, social skills and academic performance. As
already mentioned, a low emotional intelligence gives rise to various problems in the life of an
individual, in particular: the closure in oneself with consequent relational difficulties
(loneliness, lack of communication, dependence on others and unhappiness); anxiety and
depression (fears and worries, pursuit of perfection, lack of a feeling of love); difficulty in
attention and reflection (problems with concentration, poor ability to stay calm); to the point
of the manifestation of delinquent behavior or aggression (hanging out in bad company, lying,
demanding attention, reacting aggressively, having an angry temperament and changing mood)
[9].
highlight a strong association between these two variables: in general, students with higher
levels of emotional intelligence have greater academic success, compared to those with low
emotional intelligence [18].
Therefore, the presence of a school and teachers who agree to take on the teaching of emotional
education appear to be fundamental; teachers who share the importance not only of academic
performance, but recognize the need to direct their teaching practices in favor of the
development of pupils' emotional skills; especially following the pandemic situation, teachers