A Comparison of Self-Descriptions Between 2 Children of Different Ages

According to a 1993 study in the longitudinal consistency and change in self-esteem form early adolescence to early childhood by Block and Robbins, between the ages of 14 and 23 exists the potential for great changes in how the self-concept develops and is shaped. The study also concluded that more males increased their sense of self-esteem during this time than did females. After people approach the age of 30, most self-concepts remain relatively stable without significant conscious effort (Adler, Rosenfeld, Proctor 63). A realistic self-concept should change over time as it reflects the reality of current circumstances and previous experiences. The tendency, however, is to resist those changes and instead seek out others than confirm the self-concept. The powerful effect that

Adolescence is defined as the transition between childhood and adulthood. Many changes happen at this stage. Adolescence involves things such as puberty, greater independence, and a time when someone begins to construct their identity. Identity means their life value and goals including a secure sense of who they are in terms of sexual, vocational, and moral ethics. In the next few paragraphs I will be discussing my Virtual Child, Maeve as she went through adolescence (ages 11- 16). I am going to delve into the different changes I saw in her and how they relate to theories proposed by Piaget, Erikson, Marcia, and Gardner. Each

PDA covers a large spectrum of a masked disability. Not all children and young people with this disability will have all the characteristics and no two children will be the same. Some of the characteristics in children and young people with PDA include:

The process of research required an approach to interviewing, mainly the necessity to plan and conduct a narrative interview, which can be defined by an interaction or dialogue with one or more individuals in order to build a narration of their lives within a certain environment. (Soler, 2013)

Who are you? Who am I? These are questions that we all ponder at some point or another in our lives. As human beings we are seemingly inundated with the desire to classify and categorise. We are constantly defining and analysing the differences that we observe in the world, it seems only natural that we would apply this method of classification to our position within our society. More specifically, we want to understand our social identities and this can be achieved by acknowledging which groups we identify most with.

This report is an analysis of two semi structured interviews investigating the ways individual children give self- descriptions, and how these change with age. An 8 year old girl and a 16 year old boy were interviewed separately in a familiar environment. They first wrote down their chosen self-descriptions which were then discussed with the interviewer. These were followed by a series of questions relating to self-evaluation, self and others, ideal self and the locus of self-knowledge. The results were coded using the same methodology the researcher Rosenberg used to analyse children’s self-descriptions in

For the purpose of receiving more honest and accurate results, the details of the respondents were kept anonymous and therefore promoted an ethical research. The interviewees provided qualitative data, which was thoroughly integrated into my research findings and was further analysed so that it logically related to the other parts of my ideas and concepts of my Personal Interest Project. All three respondents referred to as “Jennifer”, “Jane” and “Jessica” are Iranian women who migrated to Australia at different ages which relatively influenced their responses on the three aspects of a women’s life which my research largely focused on, beauty, power and gender equality and marriage. The interviewee participants provided relevant data, which were extracted into the chapters of my research. As the subjects of my research, there was information provided which linked in closely with the personal experiences and the reflection of the participant themselves. Through my research ideas, they were able to make a deep and personal link with my research topic and so therefore a great amount of information was provided for me, which became a large part of my research findings and was crucial in putting together my research material. The responses analysed, was used to make distinguishes with the other primary and secondary findings so that an assessment and interpretation was made about a specific idea within my research. The interviewee responses was a crucial part of my research component because of the personal link my participants had with the research ideas, which provided a range of perspectives varying based on the age of the interviewees which was distinguished as a cross-cultural

The recorded interviews were listened to several times. The ‘Who Am I?’ statements were identified and transferred onto a pre-prepared category analysis form (appendix 1). The categories, Physical, Character, Relationships and Inner, were adapted from Rosenberg’s (see appendix 2). Each sentence read out by the interviewer was taken to constitute one statement. The statements were then coded. To ensure coding consistency, each statement was reviewed against the criteria for the inner category, then relationships, then character and then physical. Only if there was no way it could be said to fit within the ‘higher’ category was it pushed down. Even if it may have fitted within two categories, the fact that an order of review was applied meant that it would not be considered for a second category if it had already been allocated.

The questionnaire had two separated parts. Its first part was Rating Your Own Behavior. And the other was Rating People’s Behavior in General. There were two statements out of the Part I which I felt most strongly about. They were “I am sincere

The years between 6 and 18, middle childhood to adolescence is a time of important development that leads to the establishment of self-concept, self-esteem, and identity for children. Self-concept can be defined as an idea of the self that is created from the beliefs one holds about oneself and the way that others respond to the created self. On the other hand, self esteem can be defined as the confidence that one has in one’s own worth of abilities and self-respect. During these years, children take steps toward adulthood by becoming capable, self-governing, self-aware, and involved in the world beyond their families. Social relationships and roles change dramatically as children enter school, join programs, and become involved with peers and adults outside their families. The changes that characterize and lead to the development of self-concept and esteem as well as the formation of their identity, by looking at the examples of questions answered by an 11 year old and an 18 year old and previous research conducted in this area.

Children’s literature and picture books are often entertaining and interesting to read as a child and even sometimes as an adult. However, there is a myriad of children’s stories that significantly influences children of their perception of other races and the opposite gender. In fact, “at ages 3-5, children begin the processes of actively learning to distinguish the sexes and of forming gender stereotypes [Powlishta, Serbin & Moller, 1993]. Therefore, the gender roles and the number of female and male characters portrayed in the books probably have serious effects on these children’s gender role development and self-image” (Hamilton, Anderson, Broaddus, Young, 2006, p. 45). While this specifically referenced gender issues, serious effects would also transpire on children’s development and self-image if gender was replaced with racial groups. A plethora of children’s literature portrays stereotypes and gender bias, and this can negatively impact not only females, but also racial minorities and males.

The development of children’s identity particularly their self-perceptions, is of a widespread interest. This small-scale study was based on previous research by Rosenberg (1979). The aim was to determine the differences between self-descriptions and the shift of the locus of self-knowledge with age. The design involved semi-structured interviews of two participants aged 8 and 16 years. The participants wrote some statements about who they were, which were coded according to Rosenberg’s (1979) themes of self-descriptions. The responses about the locus of self-knowledge were also analysed to assess the shift with age and other themes were also analysed. The results showed that

Scholastic journalist, Carla Poole, writes that “they are transitioning out of the egocentric "me" stage, to a stage in which they have a greater understanding of the "me" within the "us"”. Kindergarten students’ are beginning to realize that there is a little more to life than their family. This means that they [the students’] are analyzing what is all around them. Thus leading to the -link between self-concept/esteem and 5 or 6 year olds.

Part two of this identity paper showcased some interesting aspects. I knew I would have some differences from the individual I interviewed, but I was surprised as to how differently they answered than I thought they would. This will be discussed further below in the paper. This paper provided a way to see how I viewed an individual after learning how they perceive their personal identities which are different from my own. It was also a way to practice interviewing, which is a valuable part of the social work practice. It is important to maintain professional interviewing behavior, even if you do not fully agree with what they are saying, and it can be more difficult to do so if you are talking to an acquaintance or friend.

While ages one to five kids are only surrounded by their primary group. Kids imaginations can run wild and this allows them to believe that anything is possible. All kids are the same therefore, the social interactions of kids don’t shape their self image until they are older. Unless kids have bad home lives they think they are the best think ever. But as kids begin to grow and go to elementary school they become more self conscious. They feel if they dress nicely others will like them more. This is when we start imagining what we think others think of us. What we