The purpose of this study was to find out how young children s self-esteem and social competence appear and to investigate young children s developmental phase of social competence according to the self-esteem levels and the gender. The participants for the study were 159 young children(92 boys and 67 girls) in Seosan, Chungnam.. To measure young children s self-esteem and social competence, Korean version of The Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance for Young Children of Harter & Pike(1984) (Kim, 2004) and ‘Social Competence Rating Scale for Young Children originated by Lee(2005) was used. The Results of the study were as follows: First, the children perceived themselves to be positive intermediately. Second, the mean of social competence was 3.65: It means social competence is closer to the 4 point of 「That is some right」than the 3 point of 「That is an average」. Third, young children s social competence was found to have significant differences according to the developmental self-esteem level(p<.01). Regarding sub-factors of social competence, in regulation of emotion, peer-relation skills and comprehension of social rule showed significant differences according to the developmental self-esteem level(regulation of emotion: p<.01, peer-relation skills: p<.01, comprehension of social rule: p<.01). Young children s social competence was not statistically significant by the gender. (주)코리아스칼라 | 대표: 서혜진 | 사