Self-Esteem

According to Edelstein (2001), there are current two basic views of self-esteem in education, which is said to be commonly defined as holding a high opinion of oneself. One current theoretical position is that self-esteem is good for students in general, and that if is important for them to think well of themselves regardless of how well or badly they have actually performed in school. This view holds, that if students esteem themselves highly, they will automatically do better--and even if they don't do better, they will feel happier about themselves. In other words, this theory holds, at least in part, that improvements in self-esteem are associated with improvements in academic performance.

The second view of self-esteem is more libertarian. This approach, according to Edelstein (2001) holds that self-esteem should be viewed by students as something they have earned. In this regard, Edelstein states that the libertarian view holds that if students perform better, they will then automatically feel better about themselves, rate themselves more highly and so forth. Feeling better is, therefore, viewed as a psychological reward for improved performance.

Both of these views of self-esteem have been aligned with delinquency in adolescents, both males and females. However, the first view can be more closely aligned with delinquency because it holds that delinquency can be a direct effect of low self-esteem in some students and that the delinquent behavior can

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enile delinquents, while perhaps one of the most current studies, is by far not the only study that shows similar effects. Indeed, Mannix and Mannix (1996) reported that repeatedly increases in self-esteem have been found to be associated with increases in academic performance for all sorts of special population students including those involved in delinquent behavior. Thus, Cox's (1999) research does not stand alone in the field. Still another way in which current research has examined the self-esteem-academic performance relationship among delinquents, has been through the use of longitudinal, multivariate designs. Ellickson and McGuigan (2000) conducted one such study in which they explored for early predictors of adolescent violence by the assessment of a variety of behaviors for a sample of 4,390 adolescents. All adolescents in the study were assessed in the 7th grade and then assessed again five years later when they were high school seniors. Findings showed that of those students who went on to engage in violent delinquent behaviors, low self-esteem and poor grades in middle school were two of the strongest predictors of this later delinquent behavior. Other predictors were use of cigarettes and marijuana in middle

Category: Psychology - S