Divorce and the Disruption of the Family: A Study of the Relationship Between Family Status and the Self-Esteem of College Students

This thesis explores the relationship between divorce and the self-esteem of college students. In examining these two variables I developed seven other specific hypotheses concening the student\u27s age at the time of the divorce, pre-divorce conflict between the parent(s) and child, post-divorce residence, and position within the family. The theories used were Symbolic Interactionism and Functionalism. The literature reviewed showed a void of studies done on college students. The data was gathered through the use of a questionnaire sent randomly to one-tenth of the student population at the College of Wooster. The questionnaires measured family status, number of siblings, place of residence, conflict in the parent-child relationship and self esteem. After coding the data, it was run through the SPSSX system to derive statistics for the variables. Virtually all of the data was insignificant. I attributed this to the very small response of people whose parents are divorced. Although my data was statistically insignificant, I was able to examine some possible tendencies