The emotional processes involved in the integration of culturally diverse children are of primary relevance from both theoretical and applied perspectives, also in light of the steadily increasing presence of students of different citizenships within the class, at least in the Italian schools. Our main aim was to explore the relationships between three different components of emotional competence, namely expression of achievement emotions, understanding, and regulation of emotions (Denham, 1998; Pekrun, 2006; Pekrun & Stephens, 2012), focusing on specific contexts (Italian and mathematics domain, class and test setting), in immigrant and non-immigrant elementary school students. We involved 166 immigrant and native first-, third-, and fifth-graders. We administered three instruments to measure expression of achievement emotions (Pekrun, 2006; Pekrun & Stephens, 2012), emotion understanding (TEC, Test of Emotion Comprehension, Pons & Harris, 2000), and emotion regulation (ERC, Emotion Regulation Checklist, Shields & Cicchetti, 2001). First, through multi-group analyses we verified the validity of the dimensionality–in terms of higher salience of domain versus setting–of most of the achievement emotions across immigrant status. Second, through path analyses we tested a model in which emotional understanding and regulation abilities predicted achievement emotions. Third, through multi-group analyses we documented how the relationships of such models varied across immigrant status. Notwithstanding limitations, these findings are a first step towards a better understanding of immigrant students’ emotional life. Such knowledge could help to favour processes of integration in the school, based on the awareness of the key role played by emotions.

Emotional competence in the school: Invariance of achievement emotions across immigrant status

RACCANELLO, Daniela;BRONDINO, MARGHERITA
2015-01-01

Abstract

The emotional processes involved in the integration of culturally diverse children are of primary relevance from both theoretical and applied perspectives, also in light of the steadily increasing presence of students of different citizenships within the class, at least in the Italian schools. Our main aim was to explore the relationships between three different components of emotional competence, namely expression of achievement emotions, understanding, and regulation of emotions (Denham, 1998; Pekrun, 2006; Pekrun & Stephens, 2012), focusing on specific contexts (Italian and mathematics domain, class and test setting), in immigrant and non-immigrant elementary school students. We involved 166 immigrant and native first-, third-, and fifth-graders. We administered three instruments to measure expression of achievement emotions (Pekrun, 2006; Pekrun & Stephens, 2012), emotion understanding (TEC, Test of Emotion Comprehension, Pons & Harris, 2000), and emotion regulation (ERC, Emotion Regulation Checklist, Shields & Cicchetti, 2001). First, through multi-group analyses we verified the validity of the dimensionality–in terms of higher salience of domain versus setting–of most of the achievement emotions across immigrant status. Second, through path analyses we tested a model in which emotional understanding and regulation abilities predicted achievement emotions. Third, through multi-group analyses we documented how the relationships of such models varied across immigrant status. Notwithstanding limitations, these findings are a first step towards a better understanding of immigrant students’ emotional life. Such knowledge could help to favour processes of integration in the school, based on the awareness of the key role played by emotions.
2015
Emotional competence
Achievement emotions
Immigrant status
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11562/957459
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