Characteristics of Self-Assessment in Children Prone to Aggression in School

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the level of self-esteem and aggression in Greek adolescents and examine whether the two constructs are related. A further purpose is to explore the role of family structure in adolescents’ self-esteem and engagement in aggression and the impact of gender in aggressive behaviours. For the above scope, literature review is conducted on the topic of aggressiveness in school, as well as on the relation between self-esteem and aggression and regarding the instruments for measuring self-esteem and aggression in students. Empirically, a questionnaire survey takes place, in a sample of 124 high-school students living in Athens, in the capital of Greece. According to the results, Greek adolescents have satisfactory levels of self-esteem and present low levels of aggression. Adolescent boys are found to engage more in physical aggression, while girls are found to be engaged more in verbal aggression. Self-esteem and aggression are significantly and positively correlated. The present paper contributes to the literature of aggression and self-esteem and suggests focusing on adolescents’ self-esteem, as a means of addressing aggression in schools.


Methodology
The aim of the paper is to represent the characteristics of self-assessment in children who are prone to aggression in school and to examine if students with high self-esteem are more or less prone to aggression. An additional aim is to explore the role of family structure in adolescents' self-esteem and engagement in aggression and the impact of gender in aggressive behaviours. The sample of the study is consisted of 124 high-school students living in Athens, in the capital of Greece. For the collection of the data, a questionnaire comprising valid and reliable scales is used. Statistical analysis of the survey data is performed using the IBM SPSS Version 22 software for Windows. Both descriptive and inferential statistical analysis are performed. Pearson's r correlation coefficient [6] and the independent samples T-test [7] are used.

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Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to estimate the level of self-esteem and aggression in Greek adolescents and examine whether the two constructs are related. A further purpose is to explore the role of family structure in adolescents' self-esteem and engagement in aggression and the impact of gender in aggressive behaviours. For the above scope, literature review is conducted on the topic of aggressiveness in school, as well as on the relation between self-esteem and aggression and regarding the instruments for measuring self-esteem and aggression in students. Empirically, a questionnaire survey takes place, in a sample of 124 high-school students living in Athens, in the capital of Greece. According to the results, Greek adolescents have satisfactory levels of self-esteem and present low levels of aggression. Adolescent boys are found to engage more in physical aggression, while girls are found to be engaged more in verbal aggression. Self-esteem and aggression are significantly and positively correlated. The present paper contributes to the literature of aggression and self-esteem and suggests focusing on adolescents' selfesteem, as a means of addressing aggression in schools.

Result
According to the results of the study, Greek adolescents have satisfactory levels of self-esteem and present low levels of aggression. Moreover, adolescent boys are found to engage more in physical aggression, while girls are found to be engaged more in verbal aggression. Self-esteem and aggression are significantly and positively correlated. Family structure does not influence adolescent's aggression or victimization, while adolescents growing up in single-parent families have higher emotional selfefficacy levels than their peers who live with both parents.

Discussion
According to the results of the study, the levels of aggression among high-school students in Greece are low and their self-esteem appeared to be satisfactory, rather than high. Considering that high self-esteem is associated with high levels of aggression, this finding is in agreement with previous literature, according to which the extremes types of self-esteem-either very low or very high-lead to increased aggression [8,9]. Regarding the role of gender in adolescents' aggression the results are in line with previous findings [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18], according to which boys engage in physical aggression and girls engage in verbal violence. Further, it was found that aggression and self-esteem are correlated, to a significant degree, in a positive manner. This finding corroborates previous empirical findings [4,9,19,20], according to which the two constructs are positively related. However, there are some studies that found no relation between self-esteem and aggression, in that only narcissistic individuals behave aggressively in specific situations [21][22][23], and other studies ( [5,9,19,24]), according to which low self-esteem is related to increased aggression. With respect to the family structure, it was not found to be related to low self-esteem or victimization. This finding is in convergence with the study of Ajaegbu et al. [25], in which parental care or parental separation was not found to have an impact on adolescents' aggressive behaviours.

Contribution of the Research
The present study contributes to the literature of aggression and self-esteem and suggests focusing on adolescents' self-esteem, as a means of addressing aggression in schools.