The study aimed to examine the predictive relations between key components of social behavior in school and early adolescents’ academic achievement at the end of the current and following school year. Data was collected from 226 adolescents (54.9% girls and 45.1% boys) with an average age of 12.4 years (SD = 8 months) over two consecutive school years. Class teachers assessed the adolescents’ social behavior using the second pilot version of the Social Competence and Behavior Evaluation scale adapted for early adolescents (SCBE-A) towards the end of the second grading period of the first year of data collection. They also provided the students’ final academic grades in Slovene, mathematics, and the first foreign language, both at the end of the current and the next school year. Results from the exploratory factor analysis of the SCBE-A indicated a satisfactory model fit of three statistically distinct factors: social competence, internalizing behavior, and externalizing behavior. Adolescents rated higher in social competence and lower in internalizing behavior by their teachers obtained significantly higher academic grades at the end of the current and following school years. However, externalizing behavior did not significantly predict academic achievement in either year. Girls were rated significantly higher in social competence and boys in externalizing behavior, but these average differences did not affect the predictive relations between social behavior and academic achievement. Regression models that accounted for the adolescents’ gender did not reveal significant differences in predicting academic achievement based on their observed components of social behavior. Based on the results, we offer suggestions for future research and psychological practice, e.g., considering additional psychosocial factors of academic achievement and evaluating the effectiveness of the existing social-emotional learning programs.
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