Abstract:

Self-respect represents the awareness of one’s own values, the evaluation attitude that people have of themselves respectively. Most authors consider that there are two general sources of self-respect which are social acceptance referring to approval and positive attitudes of others, and successful performance that includes the awareness of one’s own capacities and knowledge. Numerous researches indicate that self-respect is important for the mental health of a person as well as for his/her motivation towards success and achievement. At elementary school age, the image of oneself is based on self-evaluation and comparison with others, and the results of numerous researches show that during adolescence the level of self-respect diminishes due to specific changes characteristic for that period. Besides people from the family environment, teachers and peers contribute to the development of self-respect. Positive implications on the development of self-respect may result from school environment feedback and engagement in extracurricular and out of school activities through which specific capacities and talents are shown.

The present work provides research results performed on a sample of 970 pupils of elementary school age in two counties in Croatia. The scope of the research was to establish the difference in self-respect evaluation among examinees who in their free time participate in extracurricular and out of school activities and their peers who also participate. The acquired results indicated that there was no difference in the evaluation of self-respect among the examinees who participated in extracurricular activities with reference to their peers who did not participate. However, a difference was established in the evaluation of self-respect in pupils included in out of school activities compared to their peers who were not included in these activities.

Keywords:

Extracurricular and after school activities, self-respect, pupils participation in activities.