LAUSR

ABSTRACT Children’s social competence and behavioral adjustment are key issues for child development, education, and clinical research. Cross-cultural analyses are necessary to provide relevant methods of assessing them for cross-cultural research. The aim of the current study was to contribute to this important line of research by validating the 3-factor structure of the Social Competence and Behavior Evaluation (SCBE-30; LaFrenière & Dumas, 1996) among Belgian and Vietnamese children and by comparing Belgian and Vietnamese children’s social competence and behavioral adjustment. Parent reports were collected relating to 607 children ages 5 to 7: 243 from Belgium and 364 from Vietnam. The results support the universality of the 3-factor structure of the SCBE-30 encompassing social competence, externalizing behavior, and internalizing behavior. They give strong support to the relevance of this theoretically and empirically based instrument for conducting cross-cultural studies. However, they also reveal significant cultural variations with regard to individualist and collectivist values in the 2 countries under consideration.