Self-concept, self-esteem and academic achievement: strategies for maintaining self-esteem in students experiencing academic failure

Previous research into the relationship between self-esteem and academic achievement shows that despite differences in academic self-evaluation, students’ global self-representations do not differ as a result of their grades at school. In this study, we will analyse the strategies that underachievers used to maintain their self-esteem at an acceptable level. The participants were 955 adolescents in the 7th, 9th and 11th grades at four secondary schools in Lisbon. Three hundred fifty-two of these students had retaken a year at least once in their school careers, whilst 603 had never done so. We collected the data using both a self-concept scale and a scale for evaluating attitudes towards school. Results show that self-esteem is maintained through positive self-representations in non-academic facets of self-concept and/or by devaluing school-related competences. They also show that younger students are less likely to maintain self-esteem by devaluing the school experience.RésuméLes travaux de recherche sur la relation entre l’estime de soi et les résultats scolaires montrent que les élèves ayant réussite scolaire ne présentent pas des autoreprésentations globales plus positives que les élèves en situation d’échec, malgré le fait que leurs autoreprésentations académiques soient différentes. Dans cette étude nous avons analysé les stratégies que les élèves en situation d’échec scolaire utilisent pour maintenir l’estime de soi dans des niveaux acceptables. Dans cette recherche ont participé 955 adolescents du 7ème, 9ème et 11ème années de scolarité, de quatre écoles d’enseignement secondaire de Lisbonne. De ceux ci, 352 ont redoublé au moins une fois dans leur passée scolaire, tandis que 603 n’ont jamais redoublé. Pour recueillir les données nous avons utilisé une échèle pour évaluer le concept de soi et une autre pour évaluer les attitudes par rapport à l’école. Les résultats montrent que les élèves maintiennent leur estime de soi à travers des autoreprésentations positives dans des domaines non-académiques du concept de soi et/ou à travers la dévalorisation des compétences associés à l’école. Les résultats mettent, aussi, en évidence que chez les élèves plus jeunes l’estime de soi n’est pas maintenue à travers des stratégies qui font appel à une dévalorisation de l’expérience scolaire.

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