“Raising a Socially Competent Child”: Unpacking the Concept of Social Competence

“Raising a Socially Competent Child”: Unpacking the Concept of Social Competence

This paper investigates how social competence, as a discourse, has been constructed in the field of early childhood education (hereafter ‘the field’) and how the conceptualization of social competence in academia has been applied to educational practices. Based on Bruner’s (1996) notions of folk psychology and folk pedagogy and Foucault’s notion of discourse (Foucault, 1972), I identify the cultural values and beliefs in the dominant discourses about raising “a socially competent child”, comparing and contrasting them with cultural psychological studies on cultural practices of socialization and teaching. By doing so, I discuss both relatively overemphasized and neglected perspectives of young children’s socialization in the field. Finally, I discuss the educational implications of cultural diversity in the conceptualization of and cultural practices of social competence and call for the appreciation and empowerment of diverse values and characteristics of social competence.