Self-esteem, as defined by Humphreys (1996) has two central dimensions – the feeling of being lovable and the feeling of being capable. Being lovable is the relationship with others when children feel they are being accepted by others and belong to the group; the feeling of being lovable will raise self-esteem that facilitates feeling the same as others. Being lovable also means that the person is willing to share that love with others as well as to love others. Being capable is the assurance of self to be able to do things and to take responsibility. Being capable brings about an understanding of the self from the inside, which is built up from affirmations by others and oneself. Mruk (cited in Miller & Moran, 2007; p. 602) has also shown that, historically, the main definitions of self-esteem actually fall into two categories: those which focus primarily on feelings of self-worth, and those which are based upon an individual’s judgment of their personal competence. To achieve self-esteem, individuals should firstly understand their own feelings or emotions and abilities, understand that they are in a kind of relationship in which they are loved and understand that they have competence in handling things around them.
Rogers (1982) has summarized two classic contributions to the study of self-esteem in an educational context: William James and George Herbert Mead.
Me is the self as object, the content of what is known.’ In Roger’s view, the distinction of ‘I’ and ‘Me’, is entirely necessary, and can be the basis for detailed research into the self- concept. “What a person knows about him/herself is determined both by the characteristics of the I and the Me”. The self as Me, the object of our own self- perceptions, was divided by James into four aspects: the spiritual, material, social and bodily selves. These aspects were considered to be of greater significance for the determination of levels of self-esteem.
James (1890; cited in C. Rogers, 1982) thought that self-esteem was the second aspect of self-concept that was of particular significance. He defined ‘self-esteem as a person’s success divided by his aspirations’. That means that a person’s self-esteem is related to her/his goal and achievement. If an individual was very successful in achieving their goals, they might have high self-esteem. On the contrary, if the final achievement is lower than expected, then it will result in lower self-esteem; ‘Low self-esteem can be raised by obtaining greater success, or by lowering aspirations’.
The implications of this statement for education will also be affected by cultural issues. As discussed in the previous chapter, Chinese parents always wish their child to be outstanding among others. They always set higher goals for their child to work towards. Children are pushed to achieve a certain level of ‘success’ in the short term, however, this will not necessarily bring the children higher self-esteem in the long term.
Mead (1934, cited in C. Rogers, 1982), is one of the leading exponents of symbolic interactionism, particularly the development of self in social interaction. ‘Symbolic interactionism’ assumes that people respond to their environment and in turn, the
environment has an influence on them during the process of social interaction. The attitudes of others, “particularly significant others such as parents are eventually taken as attitudes that one holds towards oneself. If parents or other significant people interact with children with favourable attitudes, then in response, the individual will have favourable attitudes to themselves.” Rogers (1982; p.165) points out that a child’s self- concept is essentially a reflection of the attitudes that the child sees others holding towards him, and his self-concepts will have a determining effect upon the child’s behaviour. So, if a teacher has unfavourable attitudes towards a child, the child will notice this, incorporate it into their self-concept and begin to act accordingly. Teacher expectations become transformed into pupil performance.
The terms ‘emotional literacy’, ‘emotional competence’ and ‘emotional intelligence’ are also relevant to self-esteem. Emotional literacy, defined by Weare (2004; p.2), is the ability to understand ourselves and other people, and in particular to be aware of, understand, and use information about the emotional states of ourselves and others with competence. It includes the ability to understand, express and manage our own emotions, and respond to the emotions of others, in ways that are helpful to ourselves and others.
The definition of emotional competence defined by Elias et. al. (1997; p.2) overlaps emotional literacy: ‘it is the ability to understand, manage and express the social and emotional aspects of one’s life in ways that enable the successful management of life tasks such as learning, forming relationships, solving everyday problems, and adapting to the complex demands of growth and development’.
Saarni (1999; p.127) also categorized the skills that children need to have in achieving emotional competence:
1. awareness of one’s own emotion
2. the ability to discern and understand others’ emotions 3. the ability to use the vocabulary of emotion and expression 4. the capacity for empathic involvement
5. the ability to differentiate internal subjective emotional experience from external emotional expression
6. the capacity for adaptive coping with aversive emotions and distressing circumstances
7. awareness of emotional communication within relationships 8. the capacity for emotional self-efficacy.
Another popular term ‘emotional intelligence’ which is used particularly in the USA, was introduced by Mayer and Salovey. It is defined as:
the ability to perceive accurately, appraise and express emotion; the ability to access and/or generate feelings which facilitate thought: the ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge; the ability to regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth (Mayer & Salovey, 1997; p.10).
‘Emotional literacy’, ‘emotional competence’ and ‘emotional intelligence’ and other terms such as ‘mental health’ (Hartley-Brewer, 2001) and ‘emotional well-being’ (Stewart-Brown, 2002) all comprise the awareness of one’s own and others’ emotion, and the ability to manage one’s own emotion and deal with the relationships with others. These are the kind of abilities or skills that can be taught, practised and ultimately
developed (Panju, 2008). As Griffiths (1984; cited in Lin, 2006) claims: ‘education is an emotional matter, and it deals with emotional matters’ in a wider sense, the education of emotions uses these encounters to help the students to become aware of their own and others’ emotions and to help them to express or regulate their emotions in a productive way.
Dunlop (1984:p.1; cited in Lin, 2006) comments on the phenomenon that ‘the cognitive or intellectual components of education are usually first thought of in terms of achievements, the emotional or affective components are normally thought of first in terms of deficiencies’. Students are often rewarded and praised for their various achievements in the ‘acquisition of knowledge, their ways of looking at things, their theoretical procedures and methods and their concepts, languages and forms of discourse’. In contrast, students are rarely valued and praised for their achievements when they are able to understand emotions, are capable of expressing their emotions and/or solve problems with an appropriate emotion. It is often taken for granted by adults that children should be able to understand emotion and express their feelings at a certain age. Emotional development, therefore, is not seen as a skill a child can learn, but rather as an ability they should possess. When emotions come to light, they are often problem- oriented and accompanied with certain symptoms, such as apathy, self-centredness, emotional volatility, over-excitability, sentimentality, lack of self-control and self- knowledge. These symptoms often easily build the impression that people who have emotional or behavioural problems also always have other kinds of problems. Emotions in schools and in society are usually unseen and may even be negatively labelled. ‘The deficient tendency traps emotions into a pathological symptoms’ hole ’. As Tew (2000) comments, the British education system has largely separated the cognitive and affective
curricula. In the Chinese education system, few studies about pupils’ emotions have been undertaken. The curriculum of moral education is that students read or memorise politicians’ words. When emotions are taught in school, students, are still given texts to read and memorise, and then they have to reflect their understanding. Class teachers who deal with pupils with emotional issues discover that those students usually have behavioural problems and/or their academic achievements fall to unexpectedly low levels.
Raising an individual’s self-esteem to make them lovable and capable of caring for others can be achieved by individual learning interpersonal and social skills and building up positive relationships (Humphreys, 1996). Individuals can also learn to be able to do things and to take responsibilities. In the next section, I will draw attention to the establishment of relationships and how to develop social skills.