THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF-ESTEEM AND SOCIAL COMPETENCES IN PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS

Social competence as skills which determine the effectiveness of functioning in social situations and the possibility of reaching a compromise between the interests of individual and social interests of the environment are crucial for future teachers. Similarly, the extent to which the future teacher evaluates and perceives himself as valuable. Both of these concepts make a significant contribution to the success and quality of the teaching profession. We believe that the analysis of these two concepts and the search for their relationships can be beneficial as it offers a relatively broad application framework within the undergraduate training of future teachers. The aim of the study was to find out the relationship between self-esteem and social competences in future teachers. The data were obtained through two methods: The Social Competence Inventory (ISK-K, Kanning) and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES, Rosenberg). The research sample consisted of 407 university students of teacher training courses aged 19-54 years (average age = 26.38, SD 7.09), of whom 114 were male (average age = 27.32, SD = 6.36, range = 19-47) and 293 were female (average age = 26.01, SD = 7.33, range = 19-54). The results show that self-esteem plays an important role primarily in these factors of social competences: offensiveness (r=0,493) and self-control (r=0,539). The rate of explained variance reaches up to 21.90%. From a gender perspective, the correlation analysis in both sexes revealed the relationship between the self-esteem and the offensiveness and the self-control dimensions, while among females a weak relationships were found between the self-esteem and the remaining dimensions of the social competencies (social orientation and reflexibility). The rate of explained variance ranges between 32.04% for men and 28.62% for women. We consider these findings to be significant and we believe that it would be appropriate to take them into account, in the context of the future teacher training. Overall, the results of the study bring new knowledge in the context of the Czech environment and, at the same time, supplement and extend already realized foreign studies.