One in Three? Teachers' Attempts to Identify Low Self-Esteem Children

The maintenance of healthy self-esteem remains a central concern in pastoral care. It is almost taken for granted that we can identify low self-esteem in children based on the knowledge built up through day-to-day interactions. But self-esteem is essentially a personal perception, and one may ask, to what extent can another make reliable judgements about such a phenomenon? This study looked at the match between teachers' judgements of their pupils' self-esteem and the children's own self-reports. The teachers concerned were committed to self-esteem enhancement as an important goal of their teaching, but the findings indicate that when trying to identify low self-esteem children in their classes, they were frequently unsuccessful. These findings are discussed, and implications considered.

Keywords:

• behavioural characteristics
• self-esteem
• self-perceptions
• teachers'
• judgements