Adolescent Self-Esteem and the Schools.

This book was written to help schools and educators in their efforts to raise the self-esteem of adolescent students. The first chapter presents the layout of the book. Chapter 2 explains Coopersmith's (1967) model of self-esteem, emphasizing the model's relevance to secondary education. Experiences leading to feelings of significance, competence, power, and virtue, considered by Coopersmith to be the four sources of self-esteem, are each considered individually as they relate to self-esteem theory and to adolescent development. In chapter 3, Coopersmith's model is discussed as it relates to Dreikurs' four causes of misbehavior, Glasser's reality therapy, and Bandura's self-efficacy mechanism. Chapters 4 through 7 deal with helping the student with low self-esteem, focusing on recognizing student strengths and abilities (chapter 4), available school resources and approaches (chapter 5), applications to particular student problems (chapter 6), and self-esteem enhancement as a preventive strategy (chapter 7). Chapters 8 through 11 examine school and classroom variables related to student self-esteem. Chapter 8 looks at the school variables of size, location, design and appearance, and scheduling procedures. Chapter 9 compares unidimensional to multidimensional classrooms, competitive to cooperative teaching strategies, and student-centered to content-centered curricula. Chapter 10 suggests possible school-wide interventions and chapter 11 discusses communications approaches. The book concludes with a 91-item bibliography. (NB)