Problemåtferd og sosiale dugleikar i skolen. Ei samanlikning av elevar som viser åtferdsutfordringar og elevar utan vanskar si problemåtferd og sosiale dugleikar

Abstract The theme of this thesis is problem behavior and social skills in schooling. These constructs are interpreted in light of a traditional individual perspective and an inclusion system perspective. This is to emphasize the dialectic and complementary relationship among the two perspectives, which has been, and continues to be central to understanding the behavior in schools today. The aim is to answer the follow question: What difference can I find between pupils with behavioral challenges and pupils without difficulties in regards to behavior, social skills and the correlations between these? Analysis is based on data collected through the SPEED- project (the function of special education). This project is a collaboration between Volda University College and University College in Hedmark, and attempted to provide an extensive survey of special education in the Norwegian school system. The survey consists of 95 children and youth schools in 16 districts, where contact teachers have categorized pupils into the following two groups pupils who show behavioral challenges and pupils without difficulties. In addition, they assessed pupils' social skills, while the pupils themselves have evaluated their own problematic behaviour. This information has been given to me in an email (P. Haug, personal communication, november 20th, 2015). The analysis is performed using both independent t-tests and correlation analysis. The independent t-test is useful for analyzing the average prevalence of problematic behavior and social skills in the two student groups. Correlation analysis is useful for analyzing any relationships between problematic behavior and social skills. The results show that there is a difference among the two student groups. Pupils showing behavioral challenges score higher on problematic behavior and lower on social skills when compared with pupils without behavioural challenges. The correlation is of approximately equal strength in both groups, thus confirming this difference. Interestingly, both student groups assess the incidence of their own problematic behavior as never/rarely. It appears therefore that teachers assess pupils as more challenging than the pupils recognize themselves. Another interesting finding is that correlation is consistently low. This emphasizes a third variable problem in searching for factors maintaining problematic behavior in schools. Furthermore, the social skill adapting to the school's standards correlate strongest