Family Environmental Correlates of Students’ Affective Characteristics: a South African study

This study examined the relationships between family environmental contexts, sibling structure, immediate family settings and students’ affective characteristics. Data were collected from 460 (234 female and 226 male) South African senior high school students. Using partial least-squares path modelling the findings suggest that environmental contexts and family immediate settings combine to have modest to large concurrent validities in relation to differing measures of students’ affective characteristics, immediate family settings are related more strongly to measures of student affect than are indicators of family environment contexts and there are gender-related differences in how social-status indicators form environmental context constructs and in the nature of the relationships between students’ family environments and their affective characteristics.     

Perceived Teachers’ Behaviours and Dimensions of Adolescent Self‐concepts

The importance of teachers as significant others in the formation and development of children's self‐concepts has been widely recognised. However, the relationships between perceived specific aspects of teacher behaviours and dimensions of adolescents’ self‐concepts have not been sufficiently investigated, especially in Africa. The present study investigated the relationships between perceived teacher behaviours and adolescents’ self‐concepts. The sample included 874 students from four high schools around the metropolitan area of Cape Town, South Africa. The results showed that a significant positive relationship existed between perceived teacher support, interest, encouragement, expectations and participation, and the adolescent family, school and health self‐concepts. The findings underscore the usefulness of employing multidimensional measures in examining the intricate relationship between perceived teacher behaviours and adolescents’ self‐concepts.