Social Class and Adolescents' Self-Esteem: Another Look

Abstract

Using nontraditional measures of parental social class (father's unemployment status, neighborhood unemployment, family welfare status, and neighborhood evaluation), we replicate and extend Rosenberg and Pearlin's study of social class and self-esteem among children and adults. Nontraditional class measures are expected to show stronger effects on adolescents' global self-esteem than do traditional class measures because a greater social stigma is attached to them. We also explore the effects of more proximate school and social experiences and their ability to moderate effects of parental social class on self-esteem. We find the following: 1) father's education has a small effect on adolescents' self-esteem, as in Rosenberg and Pearlin's results; 2) nontraditional class measures have moderate effects on self-esteem, withl one exception (neighborhood unemployment strongly affects adolescents' self-esteem); and 3) direct support exists for a self-perception interpretation of the relative effects of parental and adolescent variables on adolescents' self-esteem: adolescent variables have somewhat stronger effects than parental class variables and mediate the impact of parental social status on self-esteem. Rosenberg and Pearlin's (1978) nowclassic study of social class and the selfesteem of children, adolescents, and adults remains a valuable model for researchers intrigued with the problem of relating personality to social structure. In that study, Rosenberg and Pearlin bring theoretical order to the literature on social class and self