First graders' Agency as a Factor of Intellectual Resource Use in Overcoming the Adaptation Crisis
Abstract This study explores the general criteria of agency (according to K.A. Abulkhanova) readiness and capacity to use one's abilities, personal qualities, mental capabilities and skills to solve problems. We have focused on the issue of first graders' agency during the period of age crisis and crisis of adaptation to school learning. 81 pupils were involved in the research; the data were collected three times in the first grade and at the end of primary school in the fourth grade. It is proven that only first graders with a high level of agency, whose inner schoolchild position (ISP) was already formed before starting school (as a result of the age crisis) use their intellectual resources to solve adaptation crisis problems. These agency criteria remain in force until the end of primary school, the research shows.