A Comparative Study of Self-esteem among Tribal and Non-tribal Students of Manipur

The present study is aimed to find out the level of self esteem among the tribal and non-tribal students of Manipur and examine its influencing factors among them. The study covered 9 Schools and Colleges from the two Districts of Senapati and Imphal West. A sample of 82 students - 41 tribal and 41 non-tribal, studying in class 10, 10+2 and graduates were randomly selected for the study. The sample consisted of both male and female students from tribal and non-tribal schools and colleges. The Self-esteem scale developed by Morris Rosenberg (1965) was employed for assessing the level of self-esteem of the respondents. To determine the influencing factors of self-esteem, an open-ended questionnaire developed by the researcher was used. The majority of the non- tribal students(90.2%) seem to fall in the normal range of self-esteem, where as only (75.6%) of the tribal students fall in the normal range of self esteem. The major influencing factors affecting self esteem also differs from tribal and non-tribal students. Gender differences were found in the levels of self esteem between male and female. The factors influencing the self-esteem are discussed.