جامعه شناسی کاربردی (Jun 2017)
The Relationship Between Children’s Self-Efficacy Dimensions and Family Cultural, Social and Economic Capitals
Abstract
Introduction Self-efficacy or feeling of merit, adequacy and capability in getting along with the life is one of the cognitive processes that many people develop their social behaviors as well as their personal characteristics through it. Individuals’ behavior depends upon this fact that they believe they could accomplish a particular task successfully. A person’s belief about his/her abilities, positively affects behaving in several ways including choosing among them and it causes the person to stop or continue the task. High self-efficacy enriches a person’s success and life in several ways. Previous studies suggest that self-efficacy plays an important role in shaping personal behavior and achieving goals. According to Bandura, self-efficacy could affect performance only if the person has the skills for implementing a particular task and also is motivated enough to accomplish the task. The relationship between self-efficacy and social context is inevitable. Self-efficacy as the judgment of a person about performing a particular activity is affected by intrapersonal and environmental difference, such that for a given activity the realization of self-efficacy differs among people depending among the social context. Among the first impressive environments on people’s cognitive, social and emotional abilities and also their self-efficacy believes are the family environment as well as their social, economic and cultural situation. Therefore, it seems that children’s self-efficacy has a logical and close correlation with different capitals including cultural, social and economic. Taking a glance on the literature reveals that this matter has been investigated inadequately and so, the current paper attempts to examine the correlation between self-efficacy and cultural, social and economic capitals. 2. Material & Methods The current research is a correlational type. The population is composed of all first to third year high school students in Shiraz city in the academic year 1391-1392 among which 398 students were selected using random multi-stage cluster sampling method. Research instruments were Morris self-efficacy scale and the researcher-made scales of cultural capital, social capital and economic capital. Construct validity of all scales were calculated using factor analysis, and the reliability of them were measured applying Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and Kuder-Richardson’s coefficient. The research instruments for examining economic capital was a questionnaire which was credited by referees and matched with Kuder-Richardson Coefficient. For answering the research question based on predicting self-efficacy dimensions on the basis of cultural, social and economic capitals, the regression analysis using enter method was used, that the results are shown in the Table 1. Table 1. predicting self-efficacy dimensions on the basis of cultural, social and economic capitals dependent variable independent variables F P R R2 β t p Educational Self-efficacy cultural goods 5.05 0.0001 0.25 0.06 0.17 3.2 0.002 cultural behavior 0.13 2.5 0.013 social participation -0.09 1.6 0.101 social trust -0.06 1.2 0.212 economic capital -0.05 0.93 0.351 social Self-efficacy cultural goods 3.49 0.004 0.21 0.04 0.04 0.72 0.469 cultural behavior 0.19 3.6 0.0001 social participation 0.03 0.54 0.586 social trust -0.02 0.36 0.715 economic capital -0.03 0.63 0.528 Emotional Self-efficacy cultural goods 9.59 0,0001 0.33 0.11 0.20 4.0 0.0001 cultural behavior 0.18 3.5 0.0001 social participation 0.03 0.58 0.56 social trust -0.14 2.7 0.008 economic capital -0.02 0.33 0.74 According to the table’s results, cultural goods (β=0.17, P=0.0001) and cultural behaviors (β=0.17, P=0.0001) positively and significantly predict self-efficacy, however the other forecasting variables could not predict self-efficacy. Also, extracted from the table’s results is that only the cultural behavior (β=0.19, P=0.0001) could positively and significantly predict social self-efficacy. On the contrary, cultural goods, social partnership, social confidence as well as economic capital are not able to predict social self-efficacy. And finally, only cultural goods (β=0.20, P=0.0001) and cultural behavior (β=0.18, P=0.0001) could positively and significantly, and social confidence (β= -0.14, P=0.0001) negatively and significantly predict emotional self-efficacy and the other elements could not predict this kind of self-efficacy. According to the given data from the Table 1, overall the predicting variables could explain 6% variance of academic self-efficacy, 4% variance of social self-efficacy and 11% variance of emotional self-efficacy. 3- Discussion of Results & Conclusions The infrastructure of development and improvement of all societies is their educational system. Such system could solely be effective in enhancing the society if it has independent and creative students and achieving this goal is mainly based on self-efficacy. Therefore, the current work has focused on predicting self-efficacy based on cultural, social and economic capitals. Based on the study’s findings, cultural goods and cultural behaviors could positively and significantly predict academic self-efficacy and the other predicting variables do not play any role in this self-efficacy. In describing the findings it is worthy to notice that cultural behaviors are mainly conscious and arbitrary through which people could obtain more information and knowledge and this fact cause them to be motivated to get more knowledge through cultural behavior and procedure. The finding also proposes that the economic capital does not have any effect on academic self-efficacy. Based on the findings, the cultural behavior and procedure could positively and significantly predict the social self-efficacy and the other predicting variables doesn’t contribute in predicting the social self-efficacy. The reason for insignificant correlation between achieving cultural goods and social self-efficacy might be the fact that working with cultural goods such as computers and the internet, due to their nature, more than enhancing social abilities of individuals causes an increase in a so-called loneliness sprit while social self-efficacy is based on having social skills. According to the findings of the current paper, cultural goods and cultural behaviors and procedures, positively and significantly, and social trust negatively and significantly predict emotional self-efficacy and the other variables do not play in role in this self-efficacy. The negative significant relationship between social trust and self-efficacy is likely due to the fact that a high level of trust on one hand causes dependency on others and on the other hand, leads in empathy for others’ problems and issues which in turn lowers a person’s ability in handling emotions and avoiding negative emotions.
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