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Global Self-Esteem in Technical/Vocational Versus General Secondary School Tracks: A Matter of Gender?

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Abstract

This article examines the consequences of being in a technical/vocational track for the global self-esteem of adolescents, with special attention to gender. The t-tests and multilevel analyses were performed with data from 3,720 Flemish fifth-year pupils—2,404 boys and 1,316 girls—in 33 secondary schools: 19 technical/vocational schools and 14 general schools. The analyses show that girls have significantly lower self-esteem than boys and that this gender effect suppresses a track effect. Analyses performed separately for boys and girls demonstrate that boys in technical/vocational schools have a significantly lower self-esteem than boys in general schools, but the analyses for girls show no difference for school type. Theoretical possibilities offer explanations for this gender difference in the consequences of being in a technical/vocational versus general track.

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  1. Department of Sociology, Ghent University, Universiteitstraat 4, Gent, 9000, Belgium

    Mieke Van Houtte

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  1. Mieke Van Houtte
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Correspondence to Mieke Van Houtte.

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A previous version of this article was presented at the European Conference of Educational Research (ECER) of the European Educational Research Association (EERA), Crete, September 22–25, 2004.

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Van Houtte, M. Global Self-Esteem in Technical/Vocational Versus General Secondary School Tracks: A Matter of Gender?. Sex Roles 53, 753–761 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-005-7739-y

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