Psychological disidentification with the academic domain among ethnic minority adolescents in The Netherlands

Among ethnic minority group adolescents, experiences with discrimination and prejudice in school settings are thought to lead to a defensive detachment of the self from the school domain. That is, these adolescents may disengage their self-feelings from their academic performances causing the academic self to become a less important part of global self-worth. However, there is limited empirical evidence for this assumption and the existing research is on African American students.

To examine among ethnic minority adolescents in the Netherlands the hypothesis that under conditions of perceived discrimination minority group members tend to psychologically disengage their self-feelings from educational performance.

Study 1 was conducted among 161 Turkish students between 13 and 16 years of age. The sample in Study 2 consisted of 112 Turkish participants of 11 and 12 years of age.

Two questionnaire studies were conducted and participants responded to questions on perceived academic performance, academic self-esteem, global self-worth and perceived discrimination in school.

In both studies, academic self-esteem mediated the relationship between perceived educational performance and feelings of global self-worth. More importantly, perceived discrimination in school moderated the relationship between academic self-esteem and global self-worth. Discrimination did not moderate the relationship between academic performance and academic self-esteem.

The results indicate that for ethnic minorities perceived discrimination in school can lead to psychological disidentification from the academic domain whereby global self-worth is less based on performances and competencies in the academic domain.