ASSESSMENT OF SOCIAL SKILLS OF NATIVE-AMERICAN PRESCHOOLERS - TEACHERS AND PARENTS RATINGS

The overall goal of this investigation was (a) to provide a cross-cult ural understanding of young children's social behavior and adults' exp ectations for behavior and (b) to advance knowledge of interrater corr elations for the Social Skills Rating System. The sample consisted of 50 Native American subjects and a matched sample (by age and gender) o f 50 white subjects from Head Start programs in the U.S. Midwest. The results indicated that white preschoolers exhibited social skills more frequently according to the ratings of their teachers and parents, th an did Native American preschoolers. In addition, low correlations wer e found between ratings of the importance of social behaviors by teach ers of Native American and teachers of white preschoolers and between parents of Native American and parents of white preschoolers. Parents and teachers showed a moderate agreement in their ratings of the frequ ency of expression of social skills by Native American preschoolers, a nd in their ratings of the importance of social skills across the Asse rtion subdomain. This was unlike findings for ratings by the white par ents and teachers of frequency of expression and importance of social skills, which exhibited low agreement. Explanations for these findings included cultural similarity, setting, and race commonalities within the Native American sample. The implications of this study for the ass essment of preschoolers are provided and future areas to research are outlined.