THE EFFECT OF POST-HIGH SCHOOL SOCIAL CONTEXT ON SELF-ESTEEM

This study examines the effect of post-high school social context on self-concept development by assessing changes in positive self-esteem (i.e., self-confidence) in a national longitudinal sample of males who entered the full-time labor force, the active federal military, or college after high school. The data are from Bachman's Youth in Transition study of 2,213 American high school students in five data waves between 1966 and 1974. Estimation of a LISREL structural equation model shows that of the three contexts, the military has the most significant (negative) net impact on self-concept, followed by work (slightly negative), and college (no impact). It is argued that the observed negative effect of the military context (and possibly the work context) is rooted in the larger sociohistorical processes impinging on the individual, and on the workers' and servicemen's low organizational positions. College's lack of effect appears to be due to the students' relatively high prior self-esteem and the possibility that college impacts social and political values more than self-worth. The number of months in a context positively relates to later self-esteem. It is argued that duration may work through acclimation to the role demands of one's context and to an increase in feelings of mastery and control.