THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF CONCEPT AND ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

It was hypothesized that children, both white and Negro, attending a de facto segregated school have less positive self concepts than do children attending desegregated schools, and that there is a significant positive relationship between self concept and academic achievement. Sixty children from the intermediate grades of each of the elementary schools in a small city in northern New Jersey were matched on the basis of age, grade, ex, race, intelligence, and socio-economic status. Analyses of variance were computed on the scores obtained rom the self-report instrument administered and correlations between these scores and achievement scores were alculated. It was found that children attending the de facto segregated school had less positive self concepts. There was also a significant positive relationship between self concept and academic achievement. That is, those children having more positive self concepts had higher academic achievement.