Improving Social Cohesion in Educational Environments Based on A Sociometric-Oriented Emotional Intervention Approach

• Main Authors: Eleni Fotopoulou, Anastasios Zafeiropoulos, Albert Alegre
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-01-01
• Series: Education Sciences
• Subjects: sociometrics; emotional intervention; social cohesion; open-source ICT tools
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/9/1/24

Sociometric-oriented approaches have been applied the last years in numerous cases and domains, targeting at the improvement of social groups’ characteristics for achieving personal and team-based objectives. Considering the existing approaches and the published results, in the current study, a set of emotional intervention activities based on a sociometric-oriented approach were designed and implemented with the clear objective to augment social cohesion within members of a social group in primary school students. Petrides’ trait emotional model was used to identify the emotional profile of the experimental and control group members, while the set of implemented activities was based on Bisquerra’s emotional competencies model. Sociometrics were used to evaluate the initial, intermediate and final level of social cohesion of both groups. Based on the realized statistical analysis and the produced evaluation results, useful insights with regards to the social group indicators that mainly affect the social cohesion levels are extracted and presented. It should be noted that the detailed study was based on the exclusive usage of open-source Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) tools for supporting educational needs.