The effectiveness of an intervention programme for reducing peer rejection in early childhood education

Citation: Molinero-González, P.; Martín-Antón, L.J.; Carbonero-Martín, M.Á.; Arteaga-Cedeño, W.L.; Rodríguez-Sáez, J.L. The Effectiveness of an Intervention Programme for Reducing Peer Rejection in Early Childhood Education. Children 2023,10, 1826. https://doi.org/10.3390/ children10111826 Academic Editor: Raul Navarro Received: 26 October 2023 Revised: 13 November 2023 Accepted: 15 November 2023 Published: 19 November 2023 Copyright: © 2023 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). children Article The Effectiveness of an Intervention Programme for Reducing Peer Rejection in Early Childhood Education Paula Molinero-González , Luis J. Martín-Antón * , Miguel Á. Carbonero-Martín , Wendy L. Arteaga-Cedeño and JoséLuis Rodríguez-Sáez Excellence Research Group GR179 Educational Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Valladolid, 47011 Valladolid, Spain; [email protected] (P.M.-G.); miguelangel.carboner[email protected] (M.Á.C.-M.); wendy[email protected] (W.L.A.-C.); [email protected] (J.L.R.-S.) *Correspondence: luisjor[email protected] Abstract: In the early years of schooling, peer groups are key to fostering students’ overall learning and development. Yet it has been found that around 10% of children suffer from peer rejection in the classroom, with this problem entailing negative consequences both in the short and long term. The problem proves difficult for adults to detect, which usually leads to a delay in measures being taken to intervene and prevent it. This study applies an experimental design with pre-test and post-test measurements in two groups—experimental and control—in order to address the problem of rejection in the early years of schooling. It explores aspects such as sociometric type, degree of victimisation, social and antisocial behaviour, as well as problematic situations among 637 students at six schools. We then implement an intervention programme for socioemotional competence throughout a school year in an effort to improve students’ social skills and relationships, focusing specifically on preventing and reducing the rejection experienced by some of these children. The programme comprises 35 teaching activities and strategies that promote the development of competences for student inclusion (curbing aggression, encouraging teamwork, fostering selfesteem, etc.) and that seek to involve all students, teachers, and relatives by offering an array of complementary resources that enrich the initiatives applied (a programme calendar, assessment notebook, questionnaires, related website, material resources). After the intervention programme, it was found that the experimental group had reduced the percentage of students who suffered rejection from 9.9% to 7.3%, although the same was not true of the control group, which went from 9.5% of rejected students to 10.2%. The reduction in the percentage of rejected students in the experimental group after the application of the programme is an encouraging result that invites us to continue working on more comprehensive interventions to prevent and reduce this phenomenon. Keywords: peer rejection; early childhood education; early intervention; socioemotional competence; prevention 1. Introduction Childhood and adolescence are key stages in learning and practising the social skills [ 1 ] and specific behaviours required to successfully carry out interpersonal tasks, such as making friends [ 2 ]. These social relationships and interactions are pivotal to the healthy development of students and to their socialisation [ 3 ], with the classroom environment being a key element in providing quality education [ 4 ] and with peer groups proving vital [ 5 ] in terms of offering possibilities and interests that promote different types of learning and strategies that are crucial for children’s first educational experiences in early childhood education [ 6 , 7 ]. A cordial atmosphere in schools thus has a major impact on the type and quality of learning that can be offered [ 8 ]. However, not all children have the same possibilities for interacting and learning, since the sociometric distribution within a classroom can vary enormously and may contain children who are popular, rejected, Children 2023,10, 1826. https://doi.org/10.3390/children10111826 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/children Children 2023,10, 1826 2 of 18 average, neglected, and controversial [ 9 , 10 ]. Statistically, between 10–15% of students in any given classroom suffer peer rejection [ 11 ]. This is a major problem since it is a stressful and painful event, which causes a distortion in their social self-perception and affects their emotional state [ 12 ] in addition to impacting their relationship with the environment [ 13 ]. Several authors identify similar percentages of rejected students in the first years of primary education; 13% of students, according to Monjas et al. [ 14 ], or 9.1% [ 15 ]. However, we found fewer studies on classroom sociometric typology in early childhood education, in which 8.1% of students are rejected [ 11 ]. It has also been found that this phenomenon mainly affects boys [ 16 ], with the latter being more likely to be victims of bullying than girls [ 17 ], who are generally more preferred in the classroom [ 15 , 16 ]. It is also important to mention that students with specific educational support needs (SEN) are more prone to suffer rejection [ 14 ], and that this increases as they progress through the education system [18]. Students with a low level of acceptance in their peer group tend to exhibit fewer socially accepted responses and to display more aggressive responses [ 19 ]. This causes several shortand long-term consequences such as [ 20 ] socioemotional difficulties (loneliness, isolation, low performance), internalised problems (low self-esteem, anxiety, depression), and externalised problems (behavioural problems or antisocial behaviour). The frustration they experience may lead to them giving up on their learning activities [ 21 ]. Indeed, experiencing unfavourable relationships has even been negatively linked to the emotional, social, behavioural, and neural regulation of the child and future adult [20,22]. Identifying a common pattern of rejected students proves complex because, as several authors [ 23 ] point out, there is no exact prototypical profile of a rejected child, although most do display one or more of the patterns of behaviour identified [ 24 ], which are the following: low prosocial behaviour; highly aggressive or disruptive behaviour; highly immature behaviour and a lack of attention; and high social anxiety and avoidance behaviour. Amongst the youngest children, patterns of highly aggressive or disruptive behaviour, as well as highly immature behaviour and a lack of attention, might all be seen as one and the same, since expressing aggression is shaped by their inability to stifle impulses and to deal with frustration, with aggression emerging as one of the main causes of rejection in childhood [ 25 ]. This coincides with the reasons students cite, in the early stages of education, for not choosing certain children as friends [ 26 , 27 ]. This situation may also be caused by excessive disruptive behaviour [ 28 ] or even by a deficit in language skills [ 29 ]. Rejected children tend to be less prosocial and to display a more negative self-evaluation [ 10 , 30 ], with students who exhibit low self-esteem being those who are at greatest risk of social exclusion [31], as this is a very influential construct in children’s social development [32]. Although we are aware that not all the conflicts found in schools are equally important or prevalent [ 33 ], peer rejection is one of the main forms of ill-treatment to have been identified [ 34 ]. Nevertheless, we encountered several problems: the first is that, unlike school bullying, it is not a visible problem and teachers are not always aware of the reality experienced by their students [ 35 ]. Furthermore, the younger the students, the more complex it is to identify their situation in the classroom [ 36 ], since the infant stage requires investing much time and adaptations to investigate and obtain information from children. As mentioned, research into how students perceive the acceptance and rejection they receive from their peers is scarce, despite such perception being a very valuable social skill vis àvis everyday social interactions [ 37 ]. One of the most widely used techniques when evaluating the preference for peers as playmates or friends is peer nomination [ 26 , 38 , 39 ], which involves accessing the social network structure in the classroom at a given moment [ 40 ], for which photographs of students in the early stages of education are very useful for elaborating sociograms. Several rejected students may express a negative opinion of their schools as a result of the situations they suffer due to their sociometric status [ 18 ]. These students are sometimes aware of acts of aggression committed by one peer towards another at school [ 41 ], which is defined as the degree of perceived victimisation. This victimisation may be manifested Children 2023,10, 1826 3 of 18 directly—through aggression (verbal and physical)—and indirectly—through more subtle forms such as social exclusion from the group [ 42 ]. Students may even suffer problems of depression more frequently than is the case amongst non-victimised children [ 43 ]. The children who are most victimised tend to experience greater social rejection and isolation from their classmates [ 44 ], with special needs students feeling even more victimised [ 14 ]. It is therefore important to assess whether students in the early stages of education are able to identify the degree of their victimisation; i.e., whether they perceive direct or indirect acts of aggression from their peers. Taking into account the situation regarding rejection, it is vital to intervene from an early age, when the problem of rejection is not yet critical—since social groups are still changing [ 13 ]—in order to encourage within students a level of social competence that can prevent antisocial behaviour and foster the right atmosphere for coexistence [ 45 ]. Research in this regard shows us that it is necessary to boost children’s relationships and to foster an educational perspective towards friendship [ 46 ]. Some studies indicate that it is essential for teachers to take into account different group strategies [ 47 ] or for the teacher to know their students’ preferences in order to propose shared games and dynamics that ensure the participation of the whole class [48]. It is essential to implement programmes that help control aggressive and annoying behaviours, thereby deepening self-knowledge and emotional self-control [ 49 ] and promoting prosocial skills as these help children to become more popular [ 50 ]. These prosocial behaviours should be promoted from childhood, through working on social skills with specific programmes such as those implemented by Monjas [ 51 , 52 ]. Other studies indicate that families are a fundamental axis, because their involvement is an important part of emotional education as a protective factor in conflict situations [ 53 ]. It is crucial to remember that a child’s emotional state in early childhood education is directly linked to their behaviour [54]. Scientific research has shown that implementing programmes to prevent bullying can prove very positive [ 55 ]. In order to increase research that favours the psychosocial development of rejected students [ 56 ]—and taking into account the main characteristics of the aforementioned interventions—this study seeks to gain an insight into sociometric types and to identify which profiles suffer rejection—or which might suffer it—in order to implement an intervention programme about social-emotional competence designed to prevent and reduce the problem. This aim is pursued through the following specific aims: - To examine students’ sociometric distribution: popular, average, rejected, neglected, and controversial. - To explore the links between rejection and other personal and contextual variables (victimisation, social behaviour, antisocial behaviour, etc.), providing information to teachers about their students and classes. - To provide teaching staff with a comprehensively designed socioemotional intervention programme and to apply it as a resource to prevent and reduce rejection in the classroom. - To compare the results in the experimental and control groups to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme. 2. Materials and Methods 2.1. Participants The sample is made up of 637 children in the second cycle of early childhood education (3–6 years old) in six schools, across 33 classrooms. Four of the schools are public and two are semi-private (private schools that receive public funding). In total, 31.7% of the children are in their first year of infant school, 31.1% are in their second year of infant school, and 37.2% in their third year of infant school. A total of 34.7% of the children are new to the school (as a result of being in the first year of early childhood education or because they have recently joined), while 65.3% have already been at school for at least one year. Three schools make up the experimental group—accounting for 60.3% Children 2023,10, 1826 4 of 18 of the students—while the remaining 39.7% are the three schools in the control group (Table 1). With respect to the equivalence between the experimental group and the control group, there are no statistically significant differences in terms of gender distribution, χ2 ( 1, N= 637 ) = 1.499, p= 0.225 , school year, χ2 (2, N= 637) = 0.119, p= 0.942, or whether or not the students had specific educational support needs (SEN), χ2 (1, N= 637) = 1.385, p= 0.629. Table 1. Distribution of the sample. Experimental Group Control Group Characteristics n%n% Gender Male 195 50.8% 141 55.7% Female 189 49.2% 112 44.3% Course 1st (3–4 years old) 122 31.8% 80 31.6% 2nd (4–5 years old) 121 31.5% 77 30.5% 3rd (5–6 years old) 141 36.7% 96 37.9% School School 1 64 16.7% — — School 2 124 32.3% — — School 3 196 51.0% — — School 4 — — 52 20.6% School 5 — — 135 53.4% School 6 — — 66 26.1% Ownership Public 320 83.3% 118 46.6% Semi-private 64 16.7% 135 53.4% SEN 1 Yes 24 6.3% 19 7.5% No 360 93.7% 234 92.5% 1Note. SEN = Specific Educational Support Needs. With regard to gender distribution, 52.7% of the students are boys and 47.3% are girls, with 6.8% of the students having some type of special educational needs. Finally, the study involved the participation of 33 teachers. 2.2. Instruments 1. Sociometric Questionnaire on Peer Nominations. GREI, 2009 [ 57 ]. This is a peer nomination tool which seeks to identify each student’s sociometric type: popular, rejected, average, neglected, and controversial. To achieve this, students must choose which classmates they would like to be with and those they would not. There is no limit on the number of nominations in the group. Given the participants’ age, the questionnaire was adapted to a question–answer game in the form of an individual interview in which students are shown a picture of their personalised school bus. When shown the photographs of their friends and classmates, each student is told that they can take with them those pupils that they would like to go on a trip with, and that they can remove those they do not like, giving the reasons for their choice. This was applied in the pre-test and post-test stages. 2. Victimisation Scale. GREI, 2014 [ 58 ]: an eight-item self-report questionnaire in which each child is asked to state how often, from 1 (never) to 5 (almost every day), over the last month they have experienced situations involving possible bullying and victimisation from classmates. The original scale presents a single-factor structure, with suitable psychometric properties: S-B χ2 (20) = 26.23, p= 0.158; S-B χ2/df = 1.31 , CFI = 0.99, BBNN = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.038, 90% CI [0.000, 0.068], and acceptable Children 2023,10, 1826 5 of 18 reliability (alpha = 0.82). In order to apply it to early childhood education, the scale was adapted to a story format with questions. At this educational stage, it also presents suitable psychometric properties, S-B χ2 (13) = 19.08, p= 0.125; S-B χ2/df = 1.47 , CFI = 0.99 , NNFI = 0.98, RMSEA = 0.030, 90% CI [0.015, 0.040], although with a two-factor structure that accounts for 74% of variance: (a) direct victimisation, e.g., some classmates treat you badly or make you cry, with an Alpha reliability = 0.93; (b) indirect victimisation, e.g., some classmates do not let you take part in the games and do not want to be with you (Alpha = 0.89). This was applied in the pre-test and post-test stages. 3. Preschool and Kindergarten Behaviour Scale—PKBS-2 ([ 59 ], adapted by [ 60 ]). This instrument is filled in by the teachers; one for each child. It contains 34 items that measure social behaviour and 44 items that measure antisocial behaviour on a fourpoint Likert-type response scale, ranging from 0 (never) to 3 (often). The instrument presents a suitable fit, and also displays suitable reliability indices. It was applied to all the students in the pre-test stage, and in the post-test stage it was applied to those students who were sociometrically rejected. 4. Taxonomy of Problematic Social Situations. TOPS ([ 61 ], adapted by [ 13 ]). This evaluates social situations in which each of the students has problems. The original instrument comprises 44 items on a five-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (almost always) , and it is filled in by the teacher. Items are grouped into six factors, with a high degree of internal consistency ( α total = 0.98): (a) inclusion in the peer group ( five items , α= 0.95) , (b) response to failure ( nine items , α= 0.95 ), (c) response to success (three items, α = 0.89), social expectations ( 11 items , α= 0.94 ), and (d) teacher’s expectations (six items, α = 0.95). A reduced version was applied— adapted to younger students [ 13 ]—which measures problematic situations via four factors: (a) being disadvantaged, (b) respect for authority and the rules, (c) response to one’s own success, and (d) tworosocial and empathic behaviour. The indices show an excellent fit: χ2 (113) = 132.41, p< 0.101; S-B χ2 /df = 1.17, CFI = 0.99, NFI = 0.97, NNFI = 0.99, RMSEA = 0.032, 90% CI [0.000, 0.052]. The fit and reliability indices— measured with the standardised Cronbach Alpha coefficient = 0.92—are very high. It was applied to all the students in the pre-test stage, and in the post-test stage it was applied only to those students who were rejected. 5. Individual identification sheet: this is an ad hoc instrument that contains information concerning the needs of each child, how regularly they attend school, as well as other open questions that teaching staff can answer in order to gain a deeper knowledge of their students (social relations in the classroom, which students they are most concerned about, overall classroom behaviour, etc.). This was completed in the form of a researcher–teacher interview. 6. Programme evaluation questionnaire: this ad hoc instrument contains four open questions, with 17 specific items on a four-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 (do not agree at all) to 4 (totally agree), as well as a general evaluation, ranging from 1 (not at all satisfied) to 5 (totally satisfied). The questionnaire is an evaluation resource, created ad hoc, to analyse teacher satisfaction with the programme at the end of the study. The design of the questionnaire was subjected to the judgement of three experts in order to improve its reliability and validity. It was carried out using Microsoft Forms. 2.3. Procedure and Data Analysis The research was adapted to an experimental design with pre-test and post-test measurements. After a letter had been, sent detailing the study, centres were selected randomly from those that responded positively to the invitation to participate. The study was approved by a Research Ethics Committee (CEIM, code 21-2335 NO HCUV). Authorisation was also received from the Regional Directorate General for Innovation and Teacher Training (Regional Ministry of Education at the Regional Government of Castilla y Leon), as well Children 2023,10, 1826 6 of 18 as from the schools themselves. When necessary, permission for the applicable COVID protocol was also obtained, as was the authorisation and informed consent of all the students’ families. Authorisation to participate in the study was granted for 90.3% of the students. Two informative sessions were arranged for the teachers and school management staff. The first was aimed at conceptualising peer rejection, and key information was provided concerning the issue and its related variables. The second session looked at the proposed study, detailing its commitments to the school and explaining the instruments, activities, and proposed strategies. The intervention programme also sets out a third voluntary meeting that was held with the families on six occasions. The study was carried out in three stages throughout one school year. 2.3.1. Initial Session (Pre-Test) Pre-test data were collected through individual interviews during lesson time in a room near the classroom, in an open environment with no distractions and following the order of the children in the class. 2.3.2. Application of the Intervention Programme for Socioemotional Competence and Teaching Strategies The intervention programme consists of an array of activities that merge proposals and experiences from different sources concerning referents in peer rejection [ 51 , 52 , 62 ] together with other innovative proposals, taking into account prior studies on the issue and the application of a previous pilot programme [ 63 ], aimed at enhancing its design and implementation. •Number of sessions: 35. • Content: curbing aggression and encouraging calm, developing social skills, removing prejudices, improving communication and self-esteem, boosting teamwork, etc. •Duration: eight months (October–May). • Methodology: sessions were applied individually or with the whole class, paperbased activities, activities with the family, continuous, specific, sequential, or ad hoc proposals. Work was carried out with the whole class, specifically seeking to strengthen rejected, neglected, or controversial students. A copy of the programme was given to each teacher, consisting of: •An introductory section looking at peer rejection. • An organised calendar of the proposed activities, adapted to the Castilla y León school year calendar. • 35 detailed files for each session (title, aims, content, description of the activity, materials, classroom layout, images/supplementary resources, etc.). •Follow-up notebook for the intervention—specific evaluations for each activity. • QR linked to the programme website, containing the complementary materials to download, print, or use in the IDB. • Other useful resources: a box of programme materials (physical storybooks, lanyards for the mediators), authorisations, student success indicators, and evaluation surveys for family proposals, amongst others. The programme was carried out together with the previously described teaching strategies, prominent amongst which are: the layout of the tables, taking into account sociometric types, encouraging students, reducing public disputes (seeking to confine these to a more private context), reinforcing empathic behaviours, developing oral communication individually and in group, and boosting the emotional expression of both teacher and student. Children 2023,10, 1826 7 of 18 2.3.3. Final Session (Post-Test) This session applied the same procedure as in the initial pre-test session, working individually with each child for about eight minutes. The thoughts and impressions of the teachers were also recorded in the programme evaluation questionnaire. 2.3.4. Data Analysis Descriptive analyses were carried out to examine sociometric distribution, and the chisquared statistic was also calculated ( χ2 ) to determine whether any significant differences exist. We also analysed whether there were any differences in sociometric distribution in terms of gender and whether or not the student had specific educational support needs. We also calculated the adjusted standardised residuals (ASR), taking as a criterion significant differences in frequency if the value exceeded the range [ − 1.96, 1.96]. Using all of this information, we described the sample variables. We conducted ttests for independent samples in order to ascertain whether there were significant differences between rejected and non-rejected students and between the genders in terms of the degree of victimisation, students’ social and antisocial behaviour, and problematic social situations. In order to validate the programme, the ttest was used for related samples in order to determine whether there were differences between pre-test and post-test moments, both in the experimental group and in the control group. For the size effect, we calculated Cohen’s d(1988), taking as cut-off points (a) <0.20 as very small, (b) 0.20–0.49 as small, (c) 0.50–0.79 as moderate, and (d) >0.80 as large. Previously, we checked to see whether there were any significant differences between rejected and non-rejected students—both in the experimental group and in the control group—by using the ttest for independent samples, calculating Hedges g, given the difference in the sample size of the two groups. The IBM SPSS V.29 statistical package was used. 3. Results 3.1. Sample Scores Prior to Intervention 3.1.1. Sociometric Distribution Of the sociometric types into which the 637 students who make up the sample were distributed, we found that 8.8% of students were popular, 68.6% formed part of the average sociometric type, 10% were neglected, 2.8% were controversial students, and that 9.7% were rejected. Analysis of the sample in the experimental and in the control group reveals a similar distribution, with 9.9% of students rejected in the experimental group and 9.5% in the control group. When analysing the general sample according to the distribution of gender, statistically significant differences emerge, χ2 (4, N= 637) = 56.086, p< 0.001, with a greater number of popular girls emerging—almost twice as many. Average and neglected sociometric types display a similar distribution with regards to gender. However, we see that 90.3% of the rejected students are boys. Controversial students are also predominantly male—94.4%. Girls are more popular than boys, with the latter also making up the bulk of those who are rejected and controversial. When analysing sociometric distribution by gender—taking into account the experimental group and the control group (Table 2)—we see statistically significant differences, both in the experimental group, χ2 (4, N= 384) = 38.895, p< 0.001, and in the control group, χ2 (4, N= 253) = 19.701, p< 0.001. Moreover, we observe differences between the groups, with girls proving to be significantly more popular in the experimental group but not in the control group. Boys were found to be more rejected in the two groups. In contrast, a greater distribution of controversial boys was only significant in the experimental group. Children 2023,10, 1826 8 of 18 Table 2. Comparison of the distribution of sociometric types according to gender in the experimental and control groups in the pre-test stage. Sociometric Type Experimental Control Male (n= 195) Female (n= 189) Male (n= 141) Female (n= 112) Popular n(%) 11 (33.3%) 22 (66.7%) 11 (47.8%) 12 (52.2%) ASR −2.1 2.1 −0.8 0.8 Rejected n(%) 33 (86.8%) 5 (13.2%) 23 (95.8%) 1 (4.2%) ASR 4.7 −4.7 4.2 −4.2 Average n(%) 122 (46.4%) 141 (53.6%) 88 (50.6%) 86 (49.4%) ASR −2.5 2.5 −2.5 2.5 Neglected n(%) 14 (41.2%) 20 (58.8%) 17 (56.7%) 13 (43.3%) ASR −1.2 1.2 0.1 −0.1 Controversial n(%) 15 (93.8%) 1 (6.3%) 2 (100%) 0 (0.0%) ASR 3.5 −3.5 1.3 −1.3 Significant differences also emerged between those who have or do not have specific educational support needs, χ2 (4, N= 637) = 56.086, p< 0.001, with a significantly higher percentage of rejected students amongst those who do have special educational needs (32.6%) compared to those who do not (5%). Prior to conducting the sociometric classroom study—and before they were aware of the distribution of each child’s profile—teachers were asked about the students who concerned them. Teachers expressed particular concern for 14.9% of the students. Nevertheless, we found that 66.3% of the students we identified as rejected had not been seen as a cause for concern by the teachers. 3.1.2. Victimisation As shown in Table 3, the level of victimisation amongst rejected students in the experimental group was differentially higher in terms of direct and indirect aggression and total victimisation compared to those who were not rejected, with moderate size effects in the three cases (d= 0.47, d= 0.42, and d= 0.49). Table 3. Differences in victimisation in the pre-test between rejected and non-rejected students in the experimental and control groups. Victimisation Experimental Control Rejected (n= 38) Non-Rejected (n= 346) Rejected (n= 24) Non-Rejected (n= 229) M(SD)M(SD)t p dM(SD)M(SD)t p d Direct aggression 8.79 (3.18) 7.16 (2.56) −3.21 0.001 0.47 8.32 (3.28) 7.84 (2.68) −0.660 0.510 — Indirect aggression 4.45 (1.63) 3.93 (1.25) −2.09 0.038 0.42 4.43 (1.82) 4.60 (1.73) 0.361 0.718 — Victimisation 13.24 (4.36) 11.08 (3.34) −3.20 0.001 0.49 12.75 (4.67) 12.46 (3.82) −0.284 0.777 — If we analyse specific behaviour for all the students, behaviours linked to hitting, pushing or kicking are those in which students are most victimised (M= 1.65, SD = 0.77 ). In contrast, the least common are related to manipulating classmates by controlling friendships (M= 1.28, SD = 0.57). Nevertheless, behaviours in which rejected students are most victimised, when compared to the non-rejected students, are behaviours related to “some kids in class teasing you, riling you”, t(548) = − 2.99, p= 0.004; with a small effect size, d = 0.43 ; “some kids in class leaving you out of the games and not wanting to be with you”, t(549) = − 2.72, p= 0.007, with a small effect size, d = 0.36; and “some kids in class making fun of you and laughing at you”, t(548) = − 2.84, p= 0.005, with a small effect size, d = 0.39. Children 2023,10, 1826 9 of 18 3.1.3. Social and Antisocial Behaviour Rejected students in the experimental group and in the control group present lower values for social behaviour, and higher values for antisocial behaviour when compared to non-rejected students (Table 4), with a large effect size in all cases. Table 4. Differences in social and antisocial behaviour between rejected and non-rejected students in the experimental and control groups in the pre-test stage. Behaviour Experimental Control Rejected (n= 38) Non-Rejected (n= 346) Rejected (n= 24) Non-Rejected (n= 229) M(SD)M(SD)t p d M (SD)M(SD)t p d Social cooperation 15.76 (5.24) 21.05 (3.46) 7.96 <0.001 1.19 12.18(5.88) 20.49 (3.94) 7.91 <0.001 1.66 Social interaction 15.54 (6.11) 19.75 (4.79) 4.36 <0.001 0.77 13.11 (5.84) 19.64 (4.48) 5.70 <0.001 1.25 Social independence 17.02 (5.03) 21.14 (3.89) 5.47 <0.001 0.92 13.83 (6.60) 20.82 (3.77) 6.86 <0.001 1.30 Externalising problems 27.49 (17.70) 10.63 (11.76) −7.4 <0.001 1.12 33.78(16.40) 14.07 (14.78) −5.3 <0.001 1.26 Internalising problems 9.80 (7.35) 5.86 (6.39) −3.19 0.002 0.57 11.94 (7.77) 8.17 (7.31) −2.01 0.045 0.50 3.1.4. Taxonomy of Problematic Social Situations Rejected students in the experimental group displayed higher scores in problematic social situations (Table 5) related to respecting authority and rules (p< 0.001, g= 1.16) and being disadvantaged (p= 0.021, g= 0.46), when compared to those not rejected. Something similar occurred in the control group, both with regard to respecting authority and rules ( p< 0.001 ,g= 1.25) and in terms of being disadvantaged (p= 0.008, g= 0.67), and additionally with prosocial and empathic behaviour (p= 0.043, g= 0.52). Table 5. Differences in problematic situations between rejected and non-rejected students in the experimental and control groups in the pre-test stage. Behaviour Experimental Control Rejected (n= 38) Non-Rejected (n= 346) Rejected (n= 24) Non-Rejected (n= 229) M(SD)M(SD)t p g M (SD)M(SD)t p g Being disadvantaged 16.87(6.16) 14.46 (4.93) −2.50 0.013 0.48 18.12 (5.56) 15.13 (4.22) −2.70 0.008 0.67 Respect for authority and rules 8.03 (3.24) 5.19 (2.34) −6.27 <0.001 1.16 9.32 (4.07) 5.60 (2.84) −5.18 <0.001 1.25 Response to own success 4.81 (2.01) 4.58 (2.02) −0.605 0.546 — 5.72 (2.95) 4.89 (2.15) −1.51 0.133 — Prosocial and empathic behaviour 9.53 (3.66) 8.30 (3.34) −1.95 0.052 — 11.12 (3.22) 9.28 (3.59) −2.03 0.043 0.52 3.2. Changes in the Intervention Variables in Rejected Students after Applying the Programme 3.2.1. Sociometric Distribution After applying the programme, it was found that the experimental group had reduced the percentage of students who suffered rejection from 9.9% to 7.3%, although the same was not true of the control group, which went from 9.5% of students rejected to 10.2%. In addition, in the group that received intervention, a decrease was observed in neglected students—from 8.9% to 4.2%—while the change was not as noticeable in the control group (Table 6). Children 2023,10, 1826 16 of 18 9. Coie, J.D.; Dodge, K.A.; Coppotelli, H. Dimensions and types of social status: A cross-age perspective. Dev. Psychol 1982 ,18, 557–570. [CrossRef] 10. García-Bacete, F.J.; Sureda, I.; Monjas, I. El rechazo entre iguales en la educación primaria: Una panorámica general [Peer rejection in primary education: An overview]. An. Psicol. 2010 ,26, 123–136. 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