Effects of Economic Disadvantage on Self-Concepts of Urban Black High School Students

Summary

The purpose of this study was to compare the self-concepts of economically disadvantaged and advantaged black students (N = 400 boys and girls in grades 8 through 12). The instrument was the Tennessee Self-Concept Scale, from which data for 12 variables were examined by a factorial analysis with three main effects (economic status, sex, and grade) and associated interactions. The data strongly supported the hypothesis that economic status was related to self-concepts. For all variables, the advantaged Ss compared favorably to the disadvantaged Ss. No main effect differences were found for sex, and only one difference (Conflict) was found for grade, but sex and grade interacted with economic status to produce some interesting variations. Significant linear trends suggested that disadvantaged Ss who reached the 12th grade were not significantly different from the advantaged Ss in Satisfaction, Physical Self, and Personal Self. Advantaged Ss compared favorably with general population norms, but disadvantaged Ss were lower in all variables.