ABSTRACT
From Table 8.4 it can also be concluded that school is important for young people's self-esteem. To perform well and prove that you can cope with school's cognitive demands, by, for instance, having good marks and being able to make a more demanding choice of courses, is important for selfevaluation. The relation is strongest for boys, especially at the age of 11. At this age the children are in the phase of latency. They then experience a crisis of maturation, primarily concerning the struggle between feelings of competence and inferiority (Erikson 1963). The importance of school results to the self-image of girls increases gradually, and in the teens it is comparable with that of boys. An interesting difference may be found between boys and girls with regard to the importance of family and school for their self-image. In these age-groups, it seems that school means more to the self-esteem of boys than the family does, while the opposite tendency is prevalent among girls.
