In Japan, social and emotional skills are considered important to school education; however, their actual status lacks sufficient investigation. Thus, this study elucidates gender and grade differences in social and emotional skills among children in the middle and upper grades of elementary school. The study recruited 822 elementary school children in grades 3–6 and conducted a questionnaire survey using the 21 items of the Social and Emotional Skills Evaluation Scale for Elementary School children (Yamada et al., 2023), which was previously verified for reliability and validity. The scale covers seven subscales, namely, self-esteem, compassion, sociability, respect, self-control, passion for goals, and perseverance. After excluding responses with omission or missing information, the study analyzed data from 788 subjects. The total score and the subscale scores for the Social and Emotional Skills Evaluation scale were calculated. Moreover, a two-factor analysis of variance was conducted on the total and the subscale scores to examine gender and grade differences. The total score for social and emotional skills was significantly higher in third and fourth graders compared to sixth graders. In terms of subscales, we observed a significant interaction in perseverance and self-esteem in which sixth-grade boys exhibited significantly higher values than sixth-grade girls for both the subscale scores. Furthermore, the scores for both subscales in girls were lower in sixth grade than in other grades. The girls also displayed significantly higher scores than boys in self-control, respect, and consideration. For sociability, the third, fourth, and fifth graders produced significantly higher values than sixth graders. These results revealed that the social and emotional skills of middle and upper elementary school children tend to decline with the progress in their grades. The findings also revealed that the characteristics of gender and grade differences differ according to the subscale.
