Teachers’ goals regarding social competence

This article focuses on the enhancement of social competence of students in secondary education. In the literature two perspectives on social competence can be distinguished: an ‘educating for adulthood’ perspective and an ‘educating for citizenship’ perspective. From each perspective goals are formulated for what education should be aimed at and what teachers could strive for. By means of a survey, teachers' educational goals regarding the social domain were explored. The results show that teachers unanimously emphasize educational goals from the ‘educating for adulthood’ perspective. The citizenship goals receive less attention. Irrespective of the perspective, pre‐vocational teachers appear less confident than general secondary teachers regarding the attainability of the goals for their students. They intend to contribute to the development of social competence of their students in their own lessons more often. In conclusion, we argue that teaching strategies should be developed that support teachers' contribution to their students' development of social competence, particularly the citizenship elements.