First-graders’ Agency as a Factor of Intellectual Resource Use in Overcoming the Adaptation Crisis

Abstract

Abstract This study explores the general criteria of agency (according to K.A. Abulkhanova) - readiness and capacity to use one's abilities, personal qualities, mental capabilities and skills to solve problems. We have focused on the issue of first-graders’ agency during the period of age crisis and crisis of adaptation to school learning. 81 pupils were involved in the research; the data were collected three times in the first grade and at the end of primary school – in the fourth grade. It is proven that only first graders with a high level of agency, whose inner schoolchild position (ISP) was already formed before starting school (as a result of the age crisis), use their intellectual resources to solve adaptation crisis problems. These agency criteria remain in force until the end of primary school, the research shows.