FACTORS INFLUENCING THE DEVELOPMENT OF SELF-CONCEPT IN PRE-ADOLESCENT BOYS AND GIRLS

The study deals with self-concept among pre-adolescent boys and girls in various institutions of Rajshahi City. Factors of self-concept identified are physical ability, physical appearance, peer relationship, parent relationship, reading, mathematics, general school and general self. Thus, the study aimed at designing an investigation to measure the impact of these factors of self-concept in pre-adolescent children in the socio-cultural context of Bangladesh. A total of 120 respondents constituted the sample of the study. A 2?3 factorial design involving two levels of gender (boy/girl) and three levels of socio-economic status (high/middle/low) was used. The results showed significantly higher self-concept for girls than boys. In case of socio-economic status, children of middle class family expressed highest self-concept followed by the children of high class family and least by the children of low class family. It was also found that boys from middle class family expressed highest self-concept than their counterparts from high and low class family. But girls of low class family showed highest self-concept followed by their counterpart high and middle class family. Thus, multidimensional self-concept of young children was found to be conditioned by gender and socio-economic status during pre-adolescent stage