Early adolescents’ social goals and school adjustment

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.