Family Capital, Goal Orientations and South African Adolescents' Self-concept: A moderation–mediation model

Abstract

A moderation-mediation model was constructed to examine relationships among distal family capital, family social capital, goal orientations and adolescents' self-concept. The sample included 330 female and 233 male 18-year-old African students in South Africa. The findings from multi-stage regression analyses and from regression surface investigations indicated that when distal family capital is defined conjointly by family human capital and parenting style: (1) distal family capital moderates the relations between family social capital, goal orientations and females' self-concept, and the associations between family social, capital and male adolescents' social self-concept; (2) the relationships between distal family capital and adolescents' self-concept are mediated, or partially mediated, by terms involving adolescents' perceptions of their family social capital; (3) there are different patterns of significant relationships among distal family capital, family social capital, goal orientations and adolescents' self-concept, for females and males; (4) there are distal family capital differences in the linear and curvilinear nature of the relations among family social capital, goal orientations and adolescents' self-concept, that also vary between females and males in those distal family contexts.