Maruyama, Rubin, and Kingsbury (1981) examined the relationship between achievement, self-esteem, and social class. Social class was found to be strongly interrelated and to "cause" both achievement and self-esteem.

Another study was conducted at Indiana University by Timothy Owens(1992). This study looked at the effect of post-high school context on self-esteem. Owens took high school students in a longitudinal study and placed these high school graduates into three categories. These three categories consisted of students who entered the full time labor force, the active federal military, or college after high school. Data show that of the three contexts, the military has the most significant (negative) net impact on self- concept, followed by work (slightly negative), and college (no impact). To measure this, Owens employed a concise definition of self-concept stating "the individual as known to the individual", in other words- one's assessment of the worth of the self as an object.

Another way to look at this relationship between self-esteem and education was conducted in the prison setting. Most correctional institutions employ some type of educational curriculum. This study was conducted to see if the furthering of education increased inmates feeling of self-concept. This study was designed using a survey (self-administered questionnaire) approach. One hundred fifty-eight valid questionnaires were used in the final analysis of the study. Ninety eight percent of the survey respondents felt that taking college courses helped increase their self awareness, self confidence, and self esteem (Tootoonchi, 1993).

So what degree of self-esteem do people have that never even graduated high school? A study conducted at the University of Maine (McCaul, Donaldson, Colodarci, & Davis, 1992) examined just that. The high school and beyond data base was used to investigate the experiences of drop outs and high school graduates (control group), four years after the projected date of graduation. Specifically, dropouts and graduates with no post secondary education were compared on the following: Self-esteem, satisfaction at work, political/social participation measures, and number of jobs. Multiple regression analyses were used to determine the degree to which dropping out explained variance in these measures. Dropouts differed from graduates on every personal and social adjustment measure. Differences on these measures were much more significant in males (dropouts vs. graduates), than in females (dropouts vs. graduates).

To take this idea one step further, Kelly and Jordan (1990) looked at the self-concept of "gifted" adolescents (those with a very high degree of academic achievement). Self-concept is a variable that has drawn considerable empirical study and has been identified as crucial to the realization of potential by intellectually gifted persons. The term of self-concept is used in this study to represent an evaluation of the self as an active agent in the world. Several studies have found gifted students to have more positive general self-concepts than do normative samples. The Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents was administered to each of the 90 participants. These 90 participants were divided up into three groups: highly gifted, moderately gifted, and average students. Results showed that the level of academic self-concept seemed to match the level of academic achievement. This study also notes that there are many other important variables related to self-concept, such as quality of family life, work experience, and participation in extracurricular activities. Most of these variables were not taken into account for some of the differences in self-concept.

To put my idea in this issue simply, I plan to look at the correlation between self-esteem and education. Many of these studies have already shown what I planned on showing with my study, and the results I hoped to replicate: that high self-esteem positively correlates with education level. This study and the others like it may help find a way to determine (early in life) if educational achievement is present in the individual, and what traits are present in those that tend to achieve well educationally.

Subjects

Materials

Procedure

When applying the Tukey-HSD test, significant differences were shown between group 1 (least education, a mean self-esteem score of 33.667) and group 2 (some post high school education, a mean self-esteem score of 40.50. There was also a significant difference between group 1 and group 3 (highest level of education, a mean self-esteem score of 44.0). There was not a significant difference between group 2 and group 3.

After completing this, a 2 by 3 ANCOVA was administered to see if there was a relationship between self-esteem and age. This test showed that the correlation between self-esteem and age was .6. This test also showed that level of education was not significant with self-esteem: F=2.84,p>.05. This reveals that education is not a factor in level of self-esteem, but instead age is the determinant. Older people tend to have higher levels of self-esteem than do younger people. In regard to this, older people usually have higher levels of education than do younger people. This explains why it may seem that education level and self-esteem have a strong correlation.