Henry Walker Laura Auf der Heide University of Arizona
This research studies why African American students, despite having lower academic performance, have higher self-esteem than white students. Previous research has shown that an individual's overall feelings of self-worth (global self-esteem), are highly correlated with academic achievement. Policy makers have used this to justify programs targeted at enhancing student self-esteem, in the hopes that this would boost academic performance. Unfortunately, the value of these programs is in dispute and the relationship between self-esteem and performance is contradicted by African Americans, who have higher self-esteem than their white counterparts, despite a large and persistent performance gap. Further complicating this relationship, Hispanic youth perform at lower academic levels than whites, while concurrently exhibiting low self-esteem, as they should according to theory. This project attempts to explain these contradictory patterns by examining the influence of three additional mechanisms: academic self-esteem (self-evaluations made in the academic domain), psychological centrality (the importance of particular domains to an individual), and racial identity. Using a longitudinal, mixed-methods design, 450 African American, Mexican American, and white high school freshmen and sophomores in local Tucson high schools will be studied at two points during the 2006-07 school year. In addition to surveys, a subset of the students will also be interviewed to provide more understanding of what self-esteem actually means for the lives of individuals, a topic to which there has been insufficient attention paid. This project will contribute to sociological theory in three ways: first, it will expand our existing knowledge of the linkages between global self-esteem and academic achievement in racial/ethnic groups; second, it will incorporate the previously understudied theoretical components, psychological centrality and racial/ethnic identity; third, this study will systematically examine the self-esteem of Hispanic students, an understudied group in the literature.
In addition to these significant scientific contributions, this research has two broader impacts. First, it focuses attention on Hispanic Americans and, in particular, Hispanic youth. Not only is this group increasing in demographic prominence, but it fails to follow the "typical" immigrant path of upward educational mobility experienced by European and Asian immigrants. Understanding the reasons for this may have substantial economic consequences. Second, in a society where educational attainment in youth is correlated with economic success throughout life, this research may help us direct our policy initiatives more effectively. Current policies target global self-esteem in an attempt to increase academic achievement, but these efforts clearly do not have equal effects on all youth. At the global level, the results of this research may allow us to improve education while spending as much or less money. At a local level, the findings of this research will be compiled into reports for the participating schools. It is hoped that the schools will be able to use the findings as a tool to enhance the academic success of their students.
