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Academic Self-Worth Protection Strategies Among Students

The text highlights students' fear of appearing less intelligent than their peers, leading to behaviors such as procrastination, intentional lack of effort, and avoidance of academic work to protect their self-worth. Gender differences in attitudes towards academic success and the impact of social comparison on students' behavior are also discussed. Teachers' practices of publicly sharing students' results and the consequences on students' self-perception are explored, shedding light on the complexities of maintaining self-esteem in an academic setting.

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Academic Self-Worth Protection Strategies Among Students

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  1. Professor Carolyn Jackson email: c.jackson@lancaster.ac.uk @CarolynPJackson Assumption 1 -Competition motivates students to work hard, especially boys. Assumption 2 -It’s not cool for boys to work hard academically but it’s fine for girls to work hard in school.

  2. Fears about appearing stupid What do you tell your friends if you get a low mark? How do you explain it? I probably wouldn’t tell them, I’d probably say that I got a high mark. Why would you do that? Just to show off. Why is that important? ’Cause I wouldn’t like them going round acting, knowing that I’m the dumbest one out of the whole lot of them. (David, School A) Do you compare marks with other people? No ... Why not? Because if they’ve got like high grades and I’ve got like a low grade then they might think I’m thick or something. (Alysia, Hollydale)

  3. Some people have told me that teachers actually read out the results in some classes. Yeah, I don’t really like it ’cos if you get a rubbish score … some people laugh at you sometimes. So do they [teachers] do that very often? Yeah, they do it near enough all the time. Some teachers don’t [read out the scores] ’cos they know some people get embarrassed and get upset when they read the answers out. Why do you think teachers do that? To see if … that if you do get embarrassed, you know you have to try harder so that you won’t get embarrassed (Richard, Elmwood)

  4. Self-Worth Protection Strategies 1. Procrastination 2. Intentional withdrawal of effort and rejection of academic work 3. Avoiding the appearance of working and promoting the appearance of effortless achievement 4. Disruptive behaviours o Deflect attention from poor academic performance by focusing attention on behaviour o Poor performance = attributed to not paying attention in class and messing around rather than lacking ability o May sabotage efforts and performances of others, making grade social comparisons more favourable. o Increases status and popularity with peers.

  5. Sarah (Firtrees) I don’t do that bad, I get like the average and sometimes one above. So I do do well it’s just I try not to. You try not to do well? Yes, try not to concentrate and things. So tell me a bit more about why you try not to concentrate. I don’t know because like in my maths class I’m sat next to someone whose like, hangs around and like smokes and things. So I just like try and show off and things like that, so I try to impress her. . . . ‘cause like in primary school with this girl I got bullied and everything and I was a real swot type thing, so I don’t want her to see me that way now, ‘cause like we sit next to each other. . . .

  6. So it sounds like you manage quite carefully not showing that you work in maths but actually doing work. Yes. So how do you manage that? It’s like at the beginning of a lesson I wouldn’t do anything and then I’d like rush it all at the end because I’m quite a fast writer. And so I end up getting it done but yet at the beginning I play around for a bit and then actually get down to it but like still talking in between and everything.

  7. For more about this work, see: Carolyn Jackson (2006) Lads and ladettes in school: Gender and a Fear of Failure. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

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