Early school adjustment has emerged as one of the key factors for educational performance and lower rates of psychosocial problems later in life. Thus, it is essential that we come to a better understanding of why some children exhibit positive early school adjustment while others do not. School adjustment is a comprehensive term, describing how children adapt both socially, behaviorally and academically, including aspects such as (i) children’s connectedness to school, i.e., liking school, (ii) children’s school involvement, i.e., school avoidance and task engagement and, (iii) children’s school performance, i.e., academic achievement. Several factors have been clearly linked to psychosocial adjustment in middle childhood but have, to a large extent, been studied in separate lines of research, and not specifically in relation to early school adjustment. These factors include various preschool/school factors, family and parent-child factors, peer factors, and specific individual factors of the child. Most existing studies are cross-sectional, non-developmental, and many studies focus on adolescence and not on the important phase immediately prior to or at the starting phase of school.
This poster will present the outline for and some preliminary descriptive results from a research project aimed at advancing knowledge about early school adjustment: how important factors develop from an early age, how they combine in developmental pathways for different children in their relation to positive and negative school adjustment, and how this plays out in terms of gender. The study uses data from four waves of the SOFIA-study (Social and Physical Development, Interventions and Adaptation), an ongoing prospective longitudinal research program. Data was collected through questionnaires answered by parents, preschool teachers, and principals of the preschool departments and schools. The target population was all children born between 2005 and 2007 attending preschools during the spring of 2010 (>2.000 children) in a midsized Swedish municipality. The first data collection was conducted in 2010 (when the children were 3-5-year-old preschoolers), the second in 2011, the third in 2012, and the fourth in 2015 (when the children were 8-10 years old, and all were in school). More than 95% of teachers and preschool/school head masters have responded and approximately 80% of parents, at each of the four waves.
The knowledge produced in this project can be used to develop strategies and interventions to promote early positive school adjustment, and prevent early negative school adjustment.
2017.