Justified self-esteem

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25 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper develops a thread of argument from previous contributions to this journal by Richard Smith and Ruth Cigman about the educational salience of self-esteem. It is argued - contra Smith and Cigman - that the social science conception of self-esteem does serve a useful educational function, most importantly in undermining the inflated self-help conception of self-esteem that has commonly been transposed to the educational arena. Recent findings about a lack of significant correlation between low global self-esteem and relevant educational variables help us to focus on the type of self-esteem that does matter in the classroom: justified domain-specific self-esteem, in which the chief domains in question are the school subjects and students' self-respect. Moreover, this paper suggests that low self-confidence - which is a real problem for many students - may often be mistaken for low self-esteem.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)247-261
Number of pages15
JournalJournal of Philosophy of Education
Volume41
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 May 2007

Bibliographical note

Copyright 2007 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

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