Adolescent Self-esteem: Differences by Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Age

Large-scale representative surveys of 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-grade students in the United States show high self-esteem scores for all groups. African-American students score highest, Whites score slightly higher than Hispanics, and Asian Americans score lowest. Males score slightly higher than female...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inSelf and identity Vol. 10; no. 4; pp. 445 - 473
Main Authors Bachman, Jerald G., O'Malley, Patrick M., Freedman-Doan, Peter, Trzesniewski, Kali H., Donnellan, M. Brent
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England Psychology Press 01.10.2011
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Adolescence
Age differences
Child development
Cultural differences
Gender differences
National sample
Race/ethnicity
Self esteem
Teenagers
United States > US
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Summary:Large-scale representative surveys of 8th-, 10th-, and 12th-grade students in the United States show high self-esteem scores for all groups. African-American students score highest, Whites score slightly higher than Hispanics, and Asian Americans score lowest. Males score slightly higher than females. Multivariate controls for grades and college plans actually heighten these race/ethnic/gender differences. A truncated scoring method, designed to counter race/ethnic differences in extreme response style, reduced but did not eliminate the subgroup differences. Age differences in self-esteem are modest, with 12th graders reporting the highest scores. The findings are highly consistent across 18 annual surveys from 1991 through 2008, and self-esteem scores show little overall change during that period.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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ISSN:1529-8868
1529-8876
DOI:10.1080/15298861003794538