An Adlerian Typology of School Learning Environments and Children's Feelings of Inferiority

Abstract

Canonical correlation analysis was used to examine a proposition derived from Adler's Theory of Individual Psychology that, if children perceive their school learning environment as consisting of interrelated supportive communities then they express diminished feelings of inferiority at school. A new school environment scale was constructed using Adler's typology of school environments as a framework. The scale assesses five interrelated school communities identified and labeled as the work community, administrative community, community of conversation, community of mutual aid, and the community of life and experience. Feelings of school inferiority were defined by six characteristics selected from Adler's model of inferiority-superiority dynamics and were labeled the feelings of displeasure with school, fear of humiliation at school, feelings of ignorance with schoolwork, lack of orientation at school, feelings of being deprived at school, and lack of self-esteem at school. From an analysis involving 540 12-yr.-old Australian children the findings provide strong support for the Adlerian proposition that children's low feelings of inferiority at school are associated with their perceptions of a school environment as an interrelated set of supportive community contexts.