UNDERSTANDING AND DEVELOPING CHARACTER SKILLS: SHORT LITERATURE REVIEW

More and more emphasize is put on measuring and assessing the influence of different skills on the capacity of an individual to have success during its entire life. Both educators and policy makers make assumptions on which skills are important for the success of an individual in different areas of their social and economic life. If there is a wide agreement on the role of cognitive skills, the findings and opinions on the role of non-cognitive skills are more diverse. Some of the papers indicate that non-cognitive skills have the same importance as the cognitive ones, while others consider that only the so-called “character skills” have such an impact. Under the category of character skills we find perseverance, trust, self-esteem, openness, tolerance, etc. If some of the non-cognitive skills could be improved or developed during the life cycle, character skills are rather determined by the family background and social environment and are less affected by later interventions.
This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the links between skills and performances obtained by an individual during its entire life. We employ bibliometrics and content analyses on the data base of Web of Science (WoS). We investigate publications, citations and references of selected papers in order to analyses the type of skills investigated in assessing the educational and labour market outcomes. We find that character skills are those with the most significant impact on educational outcomes, and then, education explains better the performances on the labour market.