Self-Concept among Primary School Students According to Gender and Academic Achievement Variables in Jordan.

Introduction Self-concept is one of the significant psychological concepts for many of the developmental, clinical, social, and specifically educational outputs, it is in the common sense the positive self concept may contribute positively in enhancing the academic achievement level, as it consisted of two elements, descriptive and evaluative, the first represents the first represents the individual's personal belief or what can be called the self image (Marsh, a 1990). Self-concept shaped by others and the environment and reciprocally influences how one perceives the self, others, and the environment, the domains of self concept are often differentiated from global self worth, self esteem and general self concept all of which refer to the evaluation of ones worth as a person (Scott and Barona, 2011). Shavelson (1976) defined self-concept as the mental image or perception that one has of oneself and shaped during his interaction with others and the surrounding environment, this can be affected by the judgments of others as well as the provided support. Moreover, he differed between the self-concept that is formed according to the individual's perceptions for his own behavior and actions and the one based on others reaction (Bracken, 1996). Shavelson explained in his definition seven fundamental features related to the theoretical background of self-concept (Hunt, 1997), those are: 1. It is organized structure 2. It is multi-dimensional, with each dimension reflecting an individual or group'. 3. It is hierarchical, with personal behavior in specific situation at the base, broad inferences about the self in the middle, and global/general self-concept at the apex. 4. General self-concept is stable, but as one descent the hierarchy, self-concept becomes more situations specific, and thereby less stable. 5. Self-concept becomes increasingly multidimensional as one grows polder. 6. Self-concept has both a descriptive and an evaluation aspect, and individuals may weight dimensions differently. 7. Self-concept can be differentiated from others construct such as achievement or fitness. Developmental studies suggest that self-concept emerged as a result of cognitive and social development, it consists of information related to self cognition which is a means used by the individual to interpret and understand his experiences and behaviors. Furthermore, it is a social outcome develops during his relation with other while affected by their judgments and reactions. For example, the academic self concept among children is affected by their parent expectations about their academic abilities (Oyserman, 2001). Achieving the effective functional performance includes the positive perception of the individual for himself, and due to the huge amount of experience gained in school, the academic achievement and school are considered the most important factors affecting the individual's perceptions and realizations of himself (Hunt, 1997) Self-concept is a multidimensional concept; it interacts with many areas of the individual as the imaged perceived by the individual about himself and his abilities are affected by his behaviors, actions and other people reactions towards those behaviors in many situations. Despite the differences of images and perceptions formed by the individual about himself due to the differences in those situations they are integrated in a sequenced hierarchy since the individual perceptions about him self extends from sub-domains to form the general self-concept. Therefore, there are two types of self-concept: 1) academic self-concept which included the perceptions about personal academic abilities affected particularly in mathematics area and verbal areas 2) non-academic self-concept which includes the perceptions formed by individuals about his behaviors in the emotional, social and physical fields (Bracken, 1996). …