Presentation by:
Dr Mimi Tatlow-Golden
mimi.tatlow@ucd.ie
Presentation Title:
Who I Am: Exploring the Nature, Salience and Meaning of Children’s Active and Social
Selves
Background of the study
•Self-esteem debate: ‘Hot’ variable or mirage?
•Developmental psychology should move from measurement to
exploring meaning (Hogan, 2005)
•National Children’s Strategy (2000): Listening to children;
understanding their lives; delivering quality supports
Aims of the study
•Develop richer picture of children’s core self-concept factors
- Competence in salient activities, & salient
relationships, are central to self-esteem (Harter,
2006)
=> Focus on active and social self, and their meaning
•Compare with adult views of self-esteem
•Capitalise on children’s competencies, cultures of
communication
A mixed- and multiple-methods study
•526 participants. 5th & 6th class; 10-12 yrs; 52% girls
•Random selection from stratified listings of all Dublin Region coeducational National schools
•Opt-in participation
Methods:
•Draw-and-write x2: Active self, social self
•Analogue scales to rate importance
•Who I Am ‘Pie’ to explore proportionate importance
•Follow-up interviews (n = 110) to explore meaning
•Self-esteem scales for comparative analyses
Self-esteem scales
e.g. Self-Description Questionnaire I (SDQI), Marsh, 1992
Draw-and-write
Analogue scales
Who I Am Pie
Examples of Pies
The Active Self
Being physically active
Being social
Being creative
Using media
Other activities
Findings I: Active Self
Wide-ranging: > 150 salient activities
• Physically active 67%:
Team sports; Non-team physical activities (individual sports;
unstructured, peer-based physical activities)
• Social 28%: Friends, family and pets
• Creative 20%: Music, drama, visual, written etc
• Media 13%: Personal entertainment, social networking, education
• Reading for fun 7%; Future self 4% ; Shopping 4%; School 1%
Many pronounced gender differences
• M>F Team sports (media)
• F>M Non-team physical, creative, social, shopping
Findings II: Active self meanings
•Social connection 59%: Primarily friends; also family
‘I like training, because most of my friends are there’ (boy, 11)
•Challenge & achievement 37%: Challenge, skill improvement
‘I’ve really got to like it cause I’m getting better all the time’ (boy, 11)
•Having fun 37%: Fun & escape
‘You just have lots of fun!’ (girl, 11)
•Enjoying being physically active 32%
‘It’s a high-paced game… yeah I like running’ (boy, 12)
•Time 18% : How long or how often they engaged in activity
‘I really like basketball, cause I do it like 5 times a week’ (girl, 11)
•Gender: only 1 difference; m>f physically active
The Social Self
Social self: Family – Parents, siblings,
extended family
Social Self: Friends
Social Self: Pets, Celebrities/fictional
Findings III: Social Self
• Parents 67%
• Siblings 54%
• Friends 40%
• Extended family 12%
• Pets 8%
• Celebrities/ fictional 2%
• Gender: Girls depicted more people overall than boys
However, boys and girls valued people in same order
Findings IV: Social self meanings
•Being cared for 68%: Emotionally and practically
‘When I’m with my friends and family I feel really safe, and happy’ (girl, 11)
•Sharing activities and interests, including talking 44%
‘We have like loads of things to talk about’ (girl, 10)
•Relationship quality 36%: Liking, loving and fighting
‘You fight with your brother… but at the end you still like him’ (boy, 11)
•Time 23%: Frequency of seeing people; length of friendship
‘I’ve known her longer and she’s known me longer as well’ (boy, 12)
•Having fun 20%
‘I just find them really funny and enjoyable to be with’ (boy, 12)
•Gender: Only 1 difference; f>m talking
Findings across methods
Findings across methods: I
1. Hierarchy of importance across active and social selves
• Family (parents, sibs, extended family, pets)
• Friends
• Being physically active (team and non-team)
2. Interrelationships across self domains
• Active self: social meanings were primary
• Social self: shared activities a key meaning
• Fun and time: core meanings across both these self domains
Findings across methods: II
3. Core meanings for active & social selves
•Being social, having fun and time are central to children’s
salient positive selves
•Social self: Being cared for by both friends and family
•Active self: Being challenged & improving in salient activities
4. Gender patterns
•Strong gender differences in salient activities
•Few differences re salient people
•Hardly any difference re the meanings attached to salient
activities and people
Comparing with self-esteem scales
•Active Self
•Missing factors: Non-team physical; creative; media
•Missing meanings: Social; challenge/improvement; fun
•Social Self
•Missing factors: Parents, siblings, extended family, pets
•Missing meanings: Being cared for; fun
Scales present very limited view of children’s salient selves
Self-Description Questionnaire I (Marsh, 1992) closest
Conclusions I
•School: Barely registers as a positive salient activity for children
(though they recognise its instrumental value)
•Physical activity:
- Much more salient than media activities
- Non-team physical activities (including dance) more salient
for girls. Should be recognised and developed
•Family: More salient than friends
•Pets: Highly salient to substantial minority in late childhood
•Gender: differences in salient activities – but not relationships,
nor meanings. ‘Differences culture’ exaggerated?
Conclusions II
Adult-designed self-esteem measures: limited view of children’s
selves
•Focus on school ability, team sport ability, peer acceptance
•Children focus on non-school activities; improvement;
relational caring (friends and family); and fun
•Scales measure extrinsic, not intrinsic, ‘true’ esteem?
Children’s selves should be studied using factors and meanings
salient to children
•Richer picture emerged from consultation with children
Thank you