Abstract
This study explored the salience of ethnic public and private collective self-esteem among South African students contrasting by race. Participants were 89 black and 55 white undergraduate students (93 females, 51 males; mean age: 20 years). They completed two subscales of the collective self-esteem scale; measuring ethnic private and public collective self-esteem. Logistic regression with bootstrapping and t-tests were applied to examine differences in public and private collective self-esteem between and within race. Findings suggest white students to report higher public collective self-esteem and lower private collective self-esteem when compared to black students. The expression of collective self-esteem may be tied to private rather than public images among black South African students from exposure to intergenerational marginalization consequent from the apartheid legacy.
Author’s note
The author declares no conflict of interests in conducting the study. The author received funding for this work from the National Research Foundation.