Self-Esteem of African American Preadolescents: Theoretical and Practical Considerations

Abstract

Social scientists have long taken an interest in development of children's self-concept and its relationship to such socially critical behaviors as academic achievement, teenage pregnancy, and juvenile delinquency (Ames, 1978). Because of persistent and relatively high incidence of these problems among African American adolescents, issue of identity and self-esteem has preoccupied African American psychologists and educators particularly. Some of them (i.e., Barnes, 1980) point out that development of self-concept in African American children takes place under extremely difficult circumstances. First of all, there is general influence of racism, which assigns African Americans to a lower caste status. Secondly, some practices associated with schooling such as grade retention and tracking have been immeasurably damaging to minority children (Wells-Chunn, 1989). Thirdly, support system necessary for development of a balanced self-concept is often precarious if not nonexistent for many African American children. Indeed, given conjunction of these potentially crippling conditions one would expect a very low level of self-esteem in African Americans. This expectation rests on widely held premise that the socialization process leads individuals to accept institutionalized realities as their own perceptions of what is real (Rosenholtz & Simpson, 1984, p. 33). However, in study after study evidence does not support this bleak prognosis. On contrary, it is repeatedly found that young African Americans express above-average levels of self-esteem often higher than those of White youngsters of same age (Rosenberg, 1965; Eagle et al., 1988). Despite persistence of this trend over past 25 years, it has not been thoroughly investigated nor has it received more than ad hoc explanations in literature. For instance, some writers have tried to attribute phenomenon to a process of overestimation, but available data gleaned from work of Wylie (1963) clearly indicate that while self-favorability biases occur, Negro make more modest estimates than do White subjects (p. 222). Findings such as these challenge researchers to assess more carefully relationship