School Self-concept of the Adolescents in the Relation to the Risk Behavior. Age Specifications

AbstractPresented paper deals with the relationship between the school self-concept and the risk behaviour of adolescents. The key theoretical background includes the self-concept and its components (Greenwald, & Pratkanis, 1984), the beneffectance concept (Greenwald, 1980), the self-evaluation concept (Rosenberg, 1982) and its resources (Tafarodi, & Swann, 1995), the theory of self-discrepancy (Higgins, 1991) and the concept of self-mastery (Bandura, 1997), theory of psychological needs (Langmeier, & Matějček, 2011), etc. Based on the relatively high prevalence of various forms of the risk behaviour (based on various researches), there has been put forward the assumption that (1) the measure of the risk behaviour will increase together with increasing of the adolescent age and (2) that the adolescents with higher school self-concept will produce less risk behaviour. The research has been carried out in Slovakia with the sample of 1,704 adolescents in the age from 10 to 15. Two research methods have been applied: Self-concept of School Effectiveness Questionnaire (Matějček, Vágnerová, 1992 in modification of Čerešník, 2013) and Prevalence of Adolescents Risk Behaviour (Skopal, & Dolejš, 2013; Slovak modification of Čerešník, 2013). Both hypotheses can be supported. The outcomes point to need to strengthen the self-concept at children and adolescents in terms of support of self-exploratory activity, the preference of instrumental assistance ahead executive, or the support of emotional expression and confrontation