Socio-emotional skills in Latin America and the Caribbean: Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (ERCE 2019)

Since its launch in 1997, this marks the first time that the study develops and applies an instrument to review socio-emotional skills in 6th grade children, to deliver increasingly complete, enriching information regarding the students’ integral development. These areas represent interpersonal and intrapersonal skills, necessary for effective overall functioning and for successful interaction with others (Domitrovich, Durlak, Staley & Weissberg, 2017). In addition to descriptively analyzing each of the skills measured - empathy, openness to diversity and self-regulation - these are associated with students’ different individual and family factors, as well as teachers, classrooms, and schools, to understand how different variables are related to each of the three skills analyzed. This report is organized into six sections. First, a brief analysis is carried out of the literature on the socio-emotional skills of empathy, openness to diversity and self-regulation at school, presenting the definitions used in this study (sections 1 and 2). Second, the population evaluated in this report is described, corresponding to 6th grade students participating in ERCE 2019 (section 3). Then the students’ results in the three skillsets are presented, with special care taken to propose a correct interpretation of the results (section 4). The fifth section presents the results of the analysis of factors associated with each of the skills. Finally, the main conclusions and recommendations are presented (section 6).