Foundations of children's self-concepts about everyday activities: Identities and comparative contexts

• Autores: Laurel Fisher
• Localización: European Journal of Psychology of Education, ISSN-e 1878-5174, ISSN 0256-2928, Vol. 29, Nº 3, 2014, págs. 537-555
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Children's motivations to engage in everyday activities draw on their experiences in thinking of oneself and the activities. In theory, these personal and social realities provide the complex foundations of self-concepts. The aim of this project was to define the foundations of children's self-concepts about everyday activities; to focus on everyday activities of literacy and numeracy. Participants were 8- to 12-year-old girls and boys, in a pilot study (N?=?16), correlational models of identities (N=297) and comparative contexts (N=42), and experimental evidence (N=82). The pilot study validated materials, and Study 1 confirmed a perceptual base for self-concepts. Results of Study 2 highlighted a range of comparative contexts, and Study 3 confirmed personal and social bases of children's self-concepts. In this situation, foundations of self-concepts cover identities (as a sense of individuality and belonging) and self-categorizations, in thinking about stability of skills and abilities over time, and in relation to children the same age. These ideas are readily applied to identities and arrays of self-categorizations in other situations. In conclusion, a personal and social theory of self-concepts extends contemporary Motivational Spiral Models that relate self-concepts to task strategies, skills, feelings and participation. Outcomes suggest foundations for differential interventions motivating children to participate in everyday activities.