Self-esteem and Aggression among School Students: A Comparative Study

The present study was designed to compare male and female school students on the basis of their self esteem and level of aggression. The study also attempted to find out the difference among tribal and non-tribal school students in regard to their self esteem and aggression. Therefore, the study was carried out at Agartala, the capital of Tripura, a small state in the North Eastern part of India where people of different religion, caste, and community live together. Overall 200 school students (100 male and 100 female students) from both tribal and non tribal community were selected purposively and data were collected from them using Basic Information Schedule, Self Esteem Inventory and Aggression Scale. The findings revealed significant difference among male and female school students in regard to both the mental health variables, indicating that male school students possessed high self-esteem as well as high aggression in comparison to their female counterparts. Again tribal school students possessed low self-esteem but high aggression than their non-tribal counterparts. The paper suggests that for mainstreaming the culturally and socially isolated tribal population proper counseling services should be provided to them particularly to the female tribal school students to enhance their self esteem which will in turn help them to achieve academic success as well as to adjust more adequately with the outer world.