School and family effects on the ontogeny of children's interests, self-perceptions, and activity choices

In this chapter we have presented two perspectives on the link between social context and the following motivational constructs: self-concept of ability and sense of personal efficacy in specific activity domains; perceptions of the value of skills in various domains; interest in various activities; activity choice; persistence; performance; and general self-esteem. In the first section, we discussed how social-contextual variables in both the family and the home could produce individual differences in the motivational constructs of interest. We presented a general framework for thinking about this issue and summarized our recent empirical work. In the second section, we discussed how systematic changes in the social environments that confront children as they develop could explain age-related changes in the motivational constructs of interest. Again we presented a general framework for thinking about this issue and summarized our empirical work testing the hypotheses generated from this framework. Throughout this section we have argued that optimal development takes place when there is good stage-environment fit between the needs of developing individuals and the opportunities afforded in their social environments. Furthermore, we suggested that the negative changes in motivational variables often associated with early adolescent development result from regressive changes in school and home environments. For example, the transition to junior high school, in particular, often confronts early adolescents with regressive environmental changes such as a decrease in the opportunity to participate in classroom decision making, a decrease in teacher support and teacher efficacy, and an increase in teaching styles and reporting practices likely to induce a focus on relative ability and comparative performance as well as excessive social comparison. Not surprisingly, there is also a decrease in intrinsic motivation and an increase in school misbehavior associated with this transition, and these changes are most apparent among adolescents who report regressive changes in the characteristics of classroom and school social environment. Such motivational changes are not apparent in adolescents who report the more developmentally appropriate shifts in the social context at school. Although our analysis of the family data is not as complete as our analysis of the classroom data, we have found evidence that a similar process may be going on in the family in relation to issues of control and autonomy. Excessive parental control is linked to lower intrinsic school motivation, to more negative change in self-esteem following the junior high school transition, to more school misbehavior, and to relatively greater investment in peer social attachments.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)