The role of gender and socio-economic status on the self-concept of adolescents

The primary purpose of the present investigation is to examine the role of gender and socio-economic status on adolescents’ self-concept. The study adopted a 2 (High SES x Low SES) x 2 (Boys x Girls) factorial design. In the present study, 120 adolescents (60 boys and 60 girls) participated. All the participants were from grades 8, 9, and 10 were selected from different schools of Cuttack. Both the groups of boys and girls were further divided according to their socio-economic status. Adolescents whose family income was between 5 lakhs to 10 lakhs per annum were taken as adolescents of high socio-economic status groups and adolescents whose family income was between Rs. 50000/- to 1 lakh per annum were considered as low socio-economic status groups. The participants of all the four groups (high SES adolescent boys, high SES adolescents girls, low SES adolescents boys, and low SES adolescents girls) were compared concerning different dimensions of their self-concept. The result indicated that adolescents from high SES had higher physical, moral, personal, family, social, and overall self-concept than those from low SES. In regards to gender, boys had higher physical, moral, and overall self-concept than that of the girls. In family and social self-concept, there is no significant difference between boys and girls.