The aim of this study was to evaluate social competence and empathy in school children who live in poverty. One hundred children, of both sexes, age six to nine years old, participated in this research. The materials were the Incomplete Stories Test (Mondell & Tyler, 1981) and the Empathy Scale (Bryant, 1982), that evaluated, respectively, social competence and empathy. The results demonstrated that girls are more socially competent and more empathic than boys. In the same way, the more empathic children tend to be more socially competent than the others. In a global sense, the data emphasized the importance of these two characteristics as protective factors, contributing to resilience and adaptation.
Social competence; empathy; resilience; poverty
