title: Self-Perceived Peer Acceptance in Preschoolers of Differing Economic and Cultural Backgrounds.
abstract: Self-evaluation begins in early childhood and becomes more nuanced as children get older. However, little is known about the specific factors that predict self-perception and in particular peer acceptance, early in life. This is especially true for low-income children and children of different ethnicities. This study examined 4-year-old children's feelings of social acceptance relative to teachers' perceptions. It also explored whether temperament, language skills, traditional parenting, and teachers' perceptions of peer acceptance were related to children's self-perceptions. Using 94 preschoolers from different cultural and economic backgrounds as participants, results of a mixed model analysis of variance indicated that the relation between children's self-perceptions and teachers' ratings were not uniform across economic and cultural groups. In addition, results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses demonstrated that traditional parenting was one of the strongest predictors of children's social self-perceptions. Beyond parenting, children with relatively good verbal skills, who were not temperamentally shy, tended to perceive themselves as socially competent.
authors.affiliation: a Suffolk University.
authors.forename: Rosemarie
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: DiBiase
authors.forename: Patrice M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Miller
mesh_terms: D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D007804:Language Development; D008297:Male; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology*; D010379:Peer Group; D012929:Psychological Distance; D012649:Self Concept; D012923:Social Class; D066107:Social Skills; D013694:Temperament; D014481:United States / Q000208:ethnology
keywords: language; parenting; peer acceptance; preschoolers; self-perception; socioeconomic status; temperament