Social skills for the educational integration of pre-adolescent and adolescent immigrants

ABSTRACT In this study, the variable ‘age’ was analysed in terms of its influence on the development of social skills among immigrant students enrolled in compulsory secondary education (12 to 18 years old) in the South of Spain. The social skills construct was defined with responses of N = 749 immigrant students using the Social Skill Scale for Young Immigrants (SSSYI). Six dimensions were evaluated: the ability to say ‘no’ and cut off interactions; self-expression in social situations; defending one’s own rights; ability to express anger or disagreement towards others; ability to make requests, and the ability to initiate positive interactions with the opposite sex. The analyses were carried out with the statistical software packages SPSS and STATA. The results showed that the probability of immigrant students to acquire social skills increased with age.