Self-Concept of Adolescent Boys and Girls of 11 th and 12 th Standard Of kolkata City: A Comparative Study

Abstract

Self-concept is a multi-dimensional construct that refers to an individual's perception of 'self in relation to any characteristics. It includes past, present and future selves of an individual. The self-concept may include the perception of one's abilities, motives, attitudes, beliefs, and other personality characteristics. The self-concept is composed of relatively permanent self-assessments, such as the perception of one's personality attributes, skills and abilities, motives, attitudes, beliefs, physical attributes and other personality characteristics. A person's self-concept may change with time, possibly if going through a turbulent periods of identity crisis and reassessments. In other words, the term self-concept refers to the ordered set of attitudes and perceptions that an individual holds about him or herself (Wolffe, 2000; Woolfolk, 2001; Tuttel & Tuttel, 2004).In an interesting study by Blomfield and Barber (2009) the relationship between Australian adolescents' participation in extracurricular activities and their self-concepts was investigated. Adolescents who participated in both sports and non-sports also reported a more positive social self-concept and general self-worth, compared to those who only participated in one of the activity types. This research provides support for extracurricular activities, which is considered as an essential part for learning social behaviour is facilitative of positive self-concept, and demonstrates the importance of a mixed participation profile for an adolescent's self-concept. Ybrandt (2008) observed association between positive self-concept and adjustment and for protection against common problem behaviour. A negative self-concept combined with female gender was risk factor for internalized problems. Self-control had only a direct effect on externalizing behaviour for boys. Adolescents of 15, 16 years of age had a stronger relationship between a negative self-concept and externalizing problem behaviour than younger and older adolescents. Internalizing problem behaviours such as anxiety and depression predicted aggressive and delinquent behaviour. These findings highlight the importance of promoting of a positive self-concept in every adolescent in various psychosocial contexts. Chang et al. (2003) revealed that social self-concept was a stronger correlate of life satisfaction for adolescents than for children.Evidence indicates boys having better self-concept as compared to girls (Park, 2003; Al-Zyoudi, 2007) whereas some studies found exactly the reverse (Wang, 1997). Crain (1996) noted that although the previous research in this area has been somewhat contradictory, there has been a consistent stream of findings documenting significant gender differences in domain specific areas of self-concept. Crain (1996) suggested that these differences were most notable in the areas of physical abilities and physical appearance, where boys appear to have higher levels of self-concept. However, the overall conclusion of this review was that the differences in self-concept among boys and girls are slight. The study by Byrne and Shavelson (1987) tested the invariance of a multidimensional, hierarchical self-concept structure for adolescent males and females. In a covariance structure analysis of data from a sample of 832 (412 males, 420 females) grade 11 and 12 students, with multiple measures of general, academic, English, and mathematics self-concept facets, self-concept structure differed for males and females. Although the number of self-concept factors, pattern of factor loadings (except for one), and hierarchical structure were invariant across gender, relations among the factors differed. Kaur et al., (2009) found self-concept to be positively correlated with academic achievement, though statistically not significant. However, a significantly positive relationship of home environment components of protectiveness, conformity, reward, and nurturance with self-concept has been revealed, and thereby author suggested use of rewards and nurturance from parents for positive self-concept development among adolescents. …