Multiple Dimensions of Adolescent Self-concept Relations with Age, Gender and Scholastic Measures

ABSTRACT This study was designed to determine (a) age and gender variations in the multiple areas of self-concept, and (b) relations between these dimensions of self-concept and scholastic measures. The samples comprised 274 students attending three co-educational high schools in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, South Africa. Although a few statistically significant effects of age and gender on global and domain-specific self-concepts were found, the differences appeared to be of little qualitative significance. The size and pattern of relations with scholas-tic measures was weak. However, further investigations from an African context are necessary to provide additional support for the claim that self-concepts are minimally influenced by human conditions such as age and gender and that relationships between various facets of self-concept and measures of academic achievement are weak. Within the fields of education and psychology attention has been placed upon the study of self-concept as a useful psychological construct in understanding a wide variety of behaviours (Burns, 1979; Coopersmith, 1967; Gergen, 1971; Rosenberg, 1979; Wylie, 1974, 1979). Given that self-concept continues to be considered a critical component of an individual’s social-emotional development, it is imperative that re-searchers continue to devote focused attention to the theoretical and empirical clarification of this construct not only in Western societies, but also to other non-Western countries (for example, Africa). It thus becomes a matter of concern to extend and complement the research on self-concept across cultures