Socio-Emotional Competencies and School Performance in Adolescence: What Role for School Adjustment?

There is growing evidence in the literature of positive relationships between socio-emotional competencies and school performance. Several hypotheses have been used to explain how these variables may be related to school performance. In this paper, we explored the role of various school adjustment variables in the relationship between interpersonal socio-emotional competencies and school grades, using a weighted network approach. This network approach allowed us to analyze the structure of interrelations between each variable, pointing to both central and mediatory school and socio-emotional variables within the network. Self-reported data from around 3,400 French vocational high school students were examined. This data included a set of interpersonal socio-emotional competencies (cognitive and affective empathy, socio-emotional behaviors and collective orientation), school adjustment measures (adaptation to the institution, school anxiety, self-regulation at school, and self-perceived competence at school) as well as grades in mathematics and French language. The results showed that self-regulation at school weighted the most strongly on the whole network, and was the most important mediatory pathway. More specifically, self-regulation mediated the relationships between interpersonal socio-emotional competencies and school grades

Flora indicativa: Okologische Zeigerwerte und biologische Kennzeichen zur Flora der Schweiz und der Alpen

Die «Flora indicativa» umfasst die ökologischen und biologischen Eigenschaften von 5500 Pflanzenarten aus der Schweiz und den Alpen und charakterisiert in Tabellenform die einzelnen Arten. Als wertvolle Dokumentation zur Ökologie und Biologie der Pflanzenarten in Mitteleuropa ist die «Flora indicativa» ein wesentliches Hilfsmittel zur Erhaltung der Artenvielfalt. Zudem kann sie als Einführung in die Geobotanik, d.h. in die Lehre von den Beziehungen der Pflanzen zur Umwelt genutzt werden. Die «Flora indicativa» entstand als einzigartiges Gemeinschaftswerk von 13 Botanikexperten und den führenden Schweizer Institutionen ETHZ (Institut für Integrative Biologie - Stiftung Rübel), WSL, Birmensdorf und Conservatoire et Jardin Botaniques des Genève sowie den Universitäten von Zürich, Basel, Bern, Lausanne und Genf