Questioning the General Self-Esteem Vaccine: General Self-Esteem, Racial Discrimination, and Standardised Achievement Across Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Students

Abstract

Psychological research and the popular media culture have repeatedly noted that self-esteem positively contributes to life satisfaction and performance indicators across a large variety of domains. However, while varying measures of self-esteem may be argued to have a positive influence on outcome measures, increasing evidence suggests that perceptions of racial discrimination may also have a negative impact across a wide variety of outcomes. The current investigation used structural equation modelling techniques to examine the potential impact of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian students' General Self-Esteem and their perceptions of racial discrimination on spelling and maths achievement. Results indicated that General Self-Esteem displayed little or no significant relations with the performance measures, yet perceived racial discrimination significantly and negatively predicted both spelling and maths achievement for the Indigenous and non-Indigenous students. In addition, no significant latent interaction between General Self-Esteem and perceived discrimination was identified, raising questions for the self-protective properties of General Self-Esteem, at least for achievement outcomes.