The development of students’ social competence is a key goal in emotional education, yet teachers may face conceptual challenges that hinder effective implementation. This conceptual review is particularly relevant for pre-service and in-service teacher education, highlighting challenges that teachers face in implementing emotional education effectively. This review identifies five misunderstandings shaping teacher perceptions: (1) conflating social acceptance with close friendship; (2) overgeneralising distinct social skills; (3) focusing on interpersonal behaviour while overlooking intrapersonal processes; (4) encouraging social participation without sufficient skill readiness; and (5) neglecting emotional foundations essential for social learning. The interpretative framework draws on theoretical literature and thematic analysis of interviews with 15 educators, illustrated through examples from elementary and secondary education, bridging theory and classroom practice. This review aligns with a body of research that takes a reflective and critical perspective on social and emotional education, seeking ways to refine it and adopt a more holistic approach to students. By integrating conceptual and practice-based insights, it contributes to the emotional education field and provides a foundational model to support future research and advance understanding of social competence development.

Social ostracism is a severe form of aggression in school, yet it is not well understood, for lack of evidence-based information. A retrospective study with the participation of 504 emerging adults (aged 18-25), who clearly remember a case of social ostracism during their school years, was designed to expand knowledge. The participants completed a quantitative questionnaire that included various aspects of ostracism such as its characteristics and implications. They were divided into two groups: those who had experienced ostracism and those who had not. Findings revealed that ostracism is more prevalent in grades 4-6, that the characteristics of ostracized children are wide-ranging, and that ostracism impacts all children - ostracized and non-ostracized. The ostracized children experience depression and perceptual change in their ability to trust others. Applicational implications for the school team on how to prevent ostracism, or intervene when they encounter it, are detailed.

Teasing among children is frequent in school life. Continued exposure to verbal abuse has negative effects on children’s development, including damage to their feeling of safeness and their self-image, withdrawal, and avoiding social situations. This essay focuses on developing the social competence of children who face continuing situations such as these, i.e., developing their ability to defend themselves psychologically and practically. It is based on a combination of a review of the literature and practice-based knowledge, and its main contribution is in organizing the ideas and presenting them in a three-stage methodical model that is intended for implementation in educational contexts, as part of social-emotional learning (SEL). Each stage is explained while linking it to the world of the educator. Developing competence to cope with teasing will contribute to the mental welfare of all students and help them to conduct themselves in a multicultural democratic society.

INTRODUCTION:Friendships of adolescent girls play a significant role in providing socio-emotional support and enabling the attainment of developmental tasks. The present exploratory paper focuses on an aspect of close friendships that has yet to be widely examined, which we described as the Adverse Dyadic Friendship (ADF). This is a friendship whose negative elements are perceived from the distance of time as outweighing its positive ones. METHODS:To examine the features of ADF, a qualitative study based on retrospective data obtained from 34 young adult females (Mage = 31.14, SD = 5.59) was conducted in Israel. Using a semi-structured online questionnaire, participants were asked to address a specific close same-sex friendship they had during their middle or high school years that has negatively affected them. RESULTS:The emerging themes (such as negative feelings and various coping strategies) suggest that ADF comprises an intense emotional condition, having implications on the development of individuals' self-perception. The consequences of ADF may be detrimental to adolescent girls' self-worth and friendship skills and extend into their adult life. CONCLUSIONS:Whereas the developmental literature emphasizes the positive aspects of friendship for adolescent girls, this study points out how ADF can also become a developmental challenge for them: on the one hand, ADF comprises a risk factor for their socio-emotional development, and on the other hand, presents an opportunity to learn and introduce changes in their lives. The main contribution of this paper is that ADF can stimulate further research on the complex aspects of friendship between adolescent girls.

Abstract Parental involvement is one of the key issues in education that remains a constant part of the public and academic agenda, but little is known about the perspective of educators on parental involvement in assisting the student in the social domain. It is essential to throw light on this perspective in order to construct an effective parent-educator partnership in this domain. This qualitative study focuses on educators' perspectives (perceptions and strategies). It is based on analyses of 10 case studies perceived by educators as successful and 16 statements by educators, which were not connected to a specific case study, but expressed their views about parents generally. It was found that the educators' perceptions include positive and negative aspects. Three types of effective strategies have emerged from the data: creating good communication with parents, giving practical advice to parents, and driving positive change in the relations between the child and their parents. The conclusions point to aspects that should be emphasized in teacher education, particularly professional training in how to develop social competence in students.

In today’s world, there are many situations in which teamwork, communication skills, and leadership are highly valued. In these situations, shy people may have a disadvantage. The challenges they face may prevent them from achieving their goals, possibly resulting in feelings of disappointment. This article will present current knowledge on the subject of shyness, based on various research methods. I will explain what “shyness” actually is, discuss what causes it, and describe some of the day-to-day consequences. The article will examine several questions: are kids born shy or do they develop shyness? What role do parents play? What does shyness look like in various settings? In terms of school, how do teachers see shy students, and what can be done to support these students and help them deal with their fears?

Abstract: Loneliness is prevalent among iGeneration adolescents who fail to develop close friendships. The present review proposes a proactive approach, advocating that adolescents should be supported in their development of close friendships, as part of social-emotional learning (SEL). As research has found self-disclosure to be an important skill for developing close friendships, adolescents should be guided in this skill. Such guidance is the domain of school counselors and psychologists who could use the organized thinking framework on self-disclosure and the six counseling methods detailed and demonstrated here to support adolescents in this task.

Loneliness is prevalent among iGeneration adolescents who fail to develop close friendships. The present review proposes a proactive approach, advocating that adolescents should be supported in their development of close friendships, as part of social-emotional learning (SEL). As research has found self-disclosure to be an important skill for developing close friendships, adolescents should be guided in this skill. Such guidance is the domain of school counselors and psychologists who could use the organized thinking framework on self-disclosure and the six counseling methods detailed and demonstrated here to support adolescents in this task.

Socially neglected students are those who are unnoticed by their peers. Over time, this neglect may have a negative impact on their socio-emotional development. Therefore, the present study aimed to focus on educators’ perceptions and support strategies regarding these students. Ten case studies were analyzed, in which educators reported that they had succeeded in supporting a student who was unnoticed by the peers. It was found that prior to the support process, the educators described these students as lacking characteristics common to the peer group. Three objectives were identified in the educators’ support strategies: (1) strengthening the student in himself, (2) teaching the student social skills and (3) increasing the student’s involvement within the peer group. Success in the support process, however, was perceived by the educators as being primarily connected to achieving of the third objective. This indicates that educators attach great importance to the normative social involvement of socially neglected students. Alongside with these positive findings, some critical aspects regarding the essence of the educational support intervention and its objectives are raised.

The study focused on the way teachers can help shy pupils in the school setting. Its objective was to identify educators’ perceptions of the subject and the strategies they could employ with such pupils. To that end, a thematic analysis was performed on the responses attained from fifteen in-depth interviews with educators. The main finding is that teachers’ perceptions of shy pupils are skewed insofar as they don’t adequately consider shy pupils’ internal experiences. Practical strategies for assisting such pupils were also introduced. These strategies are demonstrated and discussed in the context of the theoretical literature on assisting shy pupils.

Social strategies are a central component of intercultural competence, and are vital in understanding, theoretically and practically, the immigration and acculturation process. This study focused on an immigrant group experiencing identity threat, namely young Ethiopians in Israel, and examined their perceptions of social strategies in intergroup relations. Thematic analysis was performed on two types of qualitative data: (1) newspaper articles in which members of the Ethiopian community addressed aspects of their social strategies (31 reports collected from seven newspapers and magazines) and (2) data from two focus groups conducted afterwards with young adult members of the Ethiopian community (five to seven participants in each group). A major pattern emerging from the immigrants’ reports is the adoption of the hosts’ perspective and attitudes regarding the effective norms of social behavior. In their daily coping, on the other hand, the immigrant youth tended to exhibit a complex and at times ambivalent variety of behavioral patterns in their social interactions with members of the host culture. This spectrum of social strategies suggests dynamic processes of trial and error and reflects the unique complexity of intercultural competence. Findings were analyzed in terms of the immigrants’ perception of the threat to their identity and of their ways of coping with those threats.

The goals of this study were to examine intra-group and inter-group assertiveness among adolescents, and to compare these two domains of assertiveness between cultural groups in Israel. Measures of intra-group and inter-group assertiveness were developed, and questionnaires were administrated to 441 immigrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU), 242 immigrants from Ethiopia and 333 non-immigrants. Compared to non-immigrants, FSU and Ethiopian immigrants' inter-group assertiveness was lower. Girls reported higher levels of inter-group assertiveness than boys. Each of the immigrant groups rates itself as equally assertive as the non-immigrant group and more assertive than the other immigrant group. Also, a difference between inter-group and intra-group assertiveness was found among the FSU immigrants. It is argued that adolescents' assertiveness following cultural transition is associated with socio-cultural context, and the implications of this conclusion are discussed.