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Promoting Positive Self-Esteem in Ethnic Minority Students: The Role of School and Classroom Context

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Handbook on Positive Development of Minority Children and Youth

Abstract

Self-esteem is considered a core component of psychological well-being, and it has long been assumed that disadvantaged ethnic and racial minority children and adolescents suffer from low self-esteem due to discrimination and the internalization of prejudice. Yet research has contradicted this assumption and shown that they are able to maintain relatively positive self-evaluations and general self-esteem despite the threats of discrimination and prejudice. In this chapter we discuss past and future research on school and classroom characteristics that can promote positive self-esteem among ethnic minority students. We start by giving a broad overview of the nature and antecedents of self-esteem more generally, and then discuss the research on self-esteem in minority children and adolescents. Next, we consider research on three critical aspects of the educational environment that might contribute to the promotion of positive self-esteem among disadvantaged minority students: school ethnic composition, cultural diversity education, and students’ relationship with their teachers. We end with a discussion of practical implications and directions for future research.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    There is no consensus about how the terms ethnic and racial differ and whether they are applicable to different national contexts. Here we do not have the space to discuss this issue and we follow the ethnic and racial identity (ERI) approach (see Umaña-Taylor et al., 2014) in the use of these terms.

  2. 2.

    There is no systematic evidence that collective self-esteem is higher in collectivistic cultures (Heine et al. 1999).

  3. 3.

    Please note that this is an example of de facto rather than de jure segregation (see Zirkel 2005).

  4. 4.

    Even in the absence of tracking there can be strong differences in absolute achievement levels between schools and classrooms, due to factors such as the composition of the student body or the quality of the teaching. This means that the absolute achievement differences within classrooms are relatively small, and that the academic achievement gap will not show up in the self-perceptions of minority versus majority children.

  5. 5.

    Related to this, there is evidence that minority parents’ attempts to prepare their children for discrimination and bias can have unintentional negative effects on self-esteem (Hughes et al. 2009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ercomer, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Jochem Thijs & Maykel Verkuyten

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  1. Jochem Thijs
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  2. Maykel Verkuyten
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Correspondence to Jochem Thijs .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA

    Natasha J. Cabrera

  2. Fakultät für Psychologie, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany

    Birgit Leyendecker

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Thijs, J., Verkuyten, M. (2017). Promoting Positive Self-Esteem in Ethnic Minority Students: The Role of School and Classroom Context. In: Cabrera, N., Leyendecker, B. (eds) Handbook on Positive Development of Minority Children and Youth. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43645-6_20

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