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Early adolescents’ social goals and school adjustment

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Abstract

What are the common types of social goals endorsed by early adolescents and how are they related to their school adjustment? This article discusses the importance of assessing students’ social goals during the early adolescent developmental period when peers become increasingly important and youth experience tremendous changes to the school context as they transition to middle school. Commonly endorsed social goals particularly relevant to this developmental period and to youth’s social and academic adjustment at school are discussed, including: social status goals (i.e., the goal for popularity and the goal for peer preference); agentic and communal goals; and social achievement goals (i.e., social development goal, social demonstration-approach goal, and social demonstration-avoidance goal). This conceptual review presents research linking social goals to different markers of school adjustment in both the social domain (e.g., aggressive behavior, social worry) and the academic domain (e.g., effort in the classroom, grade point average). A summary of which social goals are related to indices of positive school adjustment is presented. Implications for educators and recommendations for future research on early adolescents’ social goals are discussed.

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Notes

  1. An additional definition of social goals stemming from achievement goal theory may be found in the work of King, McInerney, and Watkins (King and McInerney 2012; King et al. 2013). These researchers define social goals as “perceived social purposes of trying to achieve academically” which taps into the social reasons why youth study, including motives for affiliating with others doing schoolwork and showing concern for other students (Urdan and Maehr 1995, p. 232). It is important to note here that social goals, according to King, McInerney, and Watkins, are distinct from social achievement goals.

  2. A similar trichotomous achievement goal framework employed by Kuroda and Sakurai (2001, 2003) parallels the social achievement goal framework used by Ryan, Shim and colleagues. These researchers assessed social learning goals (i.e., to grow through interpersonal experiences), social performance-approach goals (i.e., to obtain positive evaluations of one’s social attributes), and social performance-avoidance goals (to avoid negative evaluations of one’s social attributes; Kuroda and Sakurai 2011).

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Funding

This manuscript was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF 0339070) and William T. Grant Foundation (Grant 6934) awarded to Hongling **e as well as grants from the Institute of Education Sciences (R305A120812; R305A140434; R305A160398) awarded to Thomas Farmer. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the granting agencies.

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    Molly Dawes

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Dawes, M. Early adolescents’ social goals and school adjustment. Soc Psychol Educ 20, 299–328 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-017-9380-3

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