Socioeconomic gaps in socio-emotional skills across cultures: The role of school-based interpersonal relationships

Abstract Socioeconomic gaps in academic achievement have been widely documented. However, whether and to what extent these socioeconomic gaps extend to the domain of socio-emotional skills is still relatively underexplored. Furthermore, limited research has examined the potential mechanisms that might help explain this relationship. To address these gaps, this study investigated socioeconomic gaps in socio-emotional skills and whether school-based interpersonal relationships may help explain their association. The participants were 31,187 10-year-old and 29,798 15-year-old students from ten cities across nine countries. The Big Five framework, which organizes skills into five broad domains and more specific facets was used to classify socio-emotional skills. The results of multilevel structural equation modeling indicated that socioeconomic gaps were present in eight out of the 15 socio-emotional skills more specifically, we found socioeconomic gaps in persistence, emotional control, empathy, trust, tolerance, creativity, sociability, and assertiveness. However, we did not find gaps in self-control, responsibility, stress resistance, optimism, cooperation, curiosity, and energy. At a broader level, there seem to be more differences in the domains of collaboration and social engagement compared to emotion regulation and task performance. Empathy, trust, sociability, and assertiveness showed the strongest disparities among students from different economic strata. School-based interpersonal relationships partly explained these gaps. Students from more advantaged families experienced more positive school-based interpersonal relationships, which in turn, facilitated higher socio-emotional skills. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.