Hello, All:

With great interest I am reading and learning from the postings, including Ms. Lipnevich, regarding the community's perception of the relationship of self-esteem to literacy.  I would like to add my own experience.  For many years I have worked as a teacher, tutor, and advocate with people of all ages and backgrounds, in groups and in individual consultation, who are struggling in some way with issues of literacy.  Sometimes they are new arrivals to the USA, with English language skills ranging from emergent through expert.  At other times they are long time residents or citizens of this country, and again with varying degrees of American English language accomplishment.  And sometimes they are native-born Americans, who struggle with our language in some way, from the basics to a more advanced understanding.  From the onset of this work it was my idea that there was a direct relationship between self-esteem and literacy.

During my years in graduate school, I remained interested in the relationship between self-esteem and literacy, yet found in my research and that of others that opinions regarding this relationship widely varied. Nevertheless, from my own ongoing work including my final research and dissertation I found again that there was a direct relationship between self-esteem and literacy, and that this relationship existed across all populations, cultures, and ages.

Now, as a practicing cognitive psychologist and educator, and as a life and career management services consultant, with more experienced and education gained, I have found no instance where these two variables are not present in some critical relationship, at least to some degree.  The evidence of this relationship presents in a variety of forms, and with a variety of forces: economic, social, political, cultural, and so on.  The presentation may be explicit, in that my client(s) tell me and demonstrate that they have low self esteem, or implicit, but there is, in my opinion, always evidence for this relationship. The evidence also takes many forms, but most simply can be seen in their change of self-perspective as they improve their communication and English language skills and go on to accomplish their goals.  The model that I have established for my practice is also based to some degree on this idea: that there is a direct relationship between self-esteem and literacy.  

Low literacy denies to people of all ages and backgrounds many aspects of life and career management.  Moderate-to-high literacy allows people to negotiate American society's processes and institutions with at least some quantifiable measure of success.  Are there other variables that assist in determining life and career success?  Of course, and they are integrated into my own practice, and reviewed in my other professiorial activities.  But the relationship does exist, and occurs in my experience with many people over many years.

Thanks for providing this forum. I enjoy the discussions and hope to hear from anyone interested.

Judith Sinclair, PhD
Cognitive Psychologist & Educator
Life & Career Management Services Consultant
The Sinclair Center
3003 Van Ness Street NW
Suite 411 West
Washington, DC  20008
Phone: 202-364-3893
Mobile: 202-236-9822
email: j-p-sinclair at att.net
www.sinclairsystem.com




----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Anastasiya A. Lipnevich 
  To: focusonbasics at nifl.gov 
  Sent: Sunday, September 24, 2006 4:15 PM
  Subject: [FocusOnBasics 480] Low Self-esteem: Myth or Reality?


  Dear All,

  First of all, I would like to thank everyone for very insightful comments concerning issues addressed in the article. I was very pleased that my work sparked such a lively discussion. As I noted in the paper, I did expect some skepticism since the findings run counter to what seems to be a commonly accepted belief in the field. I will try to dissolve it to the best of my ability; it is not my main goal, however.  Let me quickly describe the premises of the research and what these findings mean to me. 

   Since my very first encounter with the adult literacy literature, I noticed that many writers had described adult basic education learners as having detrimentally low self esteem. Similarly, many researchers showed that teachers saw their role as that of raising students self esteem. Being a student in an educational psychology program with a heavy emphasis on statistics, I always seek empirical evidence for every claim made. In the case of adult literacy students' low self esteem, I found none. Therefore, I suggested conducting a study that would shed some light on the matter. This study was going to be a part of a larger study, so it was decided to administer a self-esteem questionnaire along with other measures. 

   I agree with those of you who pointed at the possible flaws of the self-report. Ideally, I would back up my findings with other methods (e.g. interviews, observations). In case converging results are found, such triangulation would solidify my conclusions. I haven't gotten to it quite yet. However, careful construction of the questionnaire under the supervision of savvy adult education researchers and good psychometric characteristics of the measure suggest that this way of measuring self-esteem is at the very least acceptable. Students seem to have provided meaningful answers to the questions. 

   I do agree that self-esteem is influenced by many variables, e.g. economic status. This is an important factor to consider, but it doesn't change the way we interpret the findings. In psychological research, we measure self-esteem, motivation, self-regulation and what not, keeping in mind that they do not operate in isolation. However, it does give us useful information about the level of certain phenomena and helps us refine ways we interact with our students. Therefore, I do not necessarily see why difficulty with measuring self-esteem should deter us from doing it.

   For those of you who wondered why PhD students were chosen for comparison, here is my rationale. In the absence of self-esteem norms for the adult students' population, I needed a comparison group. PhD students are similar to adult learners in that they have voluntarily enrolled in their respective educational programs. Even though doctoral students and adult learners are at different educational levels, they had to believe they could succeed when they joined the program and they may have the same doubts about their potential success as they progress in the program. Additionally, societal views on PhD and adult literacy students as being a sea apart on the SE vector served as a good concurrent validity estimate.

   Having found no differences, Hal Beder and I concluded that those who work with adult basic education students should reevaluate any preconceived notions they may have about their students. Adult learners need no more praise than PhD students, and teachers' focus should be on helping learners acquire skills, strategies and knowledge, rather than working on the elusive goal of raising self-esteem. Again, my findings do not mean that adult students have high SE - it means only that they do not differ from PhD students in the levels they have.

   Having said this, I am looking forward to your comments. I will try to address your comments every night - my schedule prevents me from doing it more often. Thank you so much!


  Ana Lipnevich.






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