The COlIStruction of the Self: A Developmental Perspective. Susan Harter. New York, NY: Guilford Press, 1999.

Abstract

Within the fields of educational and developmental psychology, interest has grown concerning the question of how cognitive and socioemotional processes work together to construct pathways for the self. In particular, researchers and educators have become increasingly interested in the role that the school plays in children's self-development. According to Jerome Bruner, "the single most universal thing about human experience is the phenomenon of the 'Self" (1996, p. 35) and advocates that education is crucial to its formation. However, despite the strong theoretical claims linking a child's sense of self to school experience, there has been a lack of systematic research on the self within the school context.