Adolescents’ Self-concept and Social Status in School Class

• Published in: The international journal of interdisciplinary educational studies 2013, Vol.7 (1), p.21-40
• Main Authors: Ļevina, Jeļena, Ivanova, Natalija, Jenenkova, Oksana
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescents; Peer Acceptance; Peer relationships; Personal appearance; Preferences; Self esteem; Social impact; Social Status; Teenagers
• ISSN: 2327-011X; 2327-2570
• DOI: 10.18848/2327-011X/CGP/v07i01/53275

The purpose of this research was to investigate the relations between multidimensional self-concept of adolescents and different dimensions of social status in school class (social preference, social impact, perceived popularity and social dominance). The sample consisted of 297 participants from Latvian schools aged from 14 to 17 years (boys: 49.5%, girls: 50.5%). Participants completed the Russian version of the Self-Description Questionnaire-II (SDQ-II) developed by J. Ļevina and N. Ivanova (2011). The original English version of the SDQ-II was designed by H. Marsh (1990) and measures 11 different dimensions of self-concept. Three procedures were used to determine students’ social status: sociometric procedure (Coie, Dodge, & Coppotelli, 1982), peers’ nomination procedure (Parkhurst & Hopmeyer, 1998), and paired-comparison procedure (Lease, Musgrove, & Axelrod, 2002). A correlational analysis was conducted in order to investigate relations between dimensions of adolescents’ social status in school class and multiple aspects of their self-concept. In order to investigate the contribution of dimensions of social status on multiple aspects of self-concept a series of regression analyses was conducted. Results indicated that there was a positive relationship between physical abilities self-concept and social preference, perceived popularity, and social dominance; physical appearance self-concept and perceived popularity and social dominance; opposite-sex peer relations self-concept and perceived popularity and social dominance; same-sex peer relations self-concept and social preference, perceived popularity, and social dominance; math self-concept and perceived popularity; general school self-concept and social impact, perceived popularity, and social dominance; general self-concept and social dominance. It was found that social dominance significantly and best predicted physical abilities self-concept, physical appearance self-concept, same-sex relations self-concept, general school self-concept, and general self. Perceived popularity and social dominance both contributed significantly to levels of opposite-sex relations self-concept. Perceived popularity significantly predicted math self-concept.